he lived formerly in a little house beside the high road outside the village. he had set up in business as a wheelwright, after marrying the daughter of a farmer of the neighborhood, and as they were both industrious, they managed to save up a nice little fortune. but they had no children, and this caused them great sorrow. finally a son was born, whom they named jean. they both loved and petted him, enfolding him with their affection, and were unwilling to let him be out of their sight.
when he was five years old some mountebanks passed through the country and set up their tent in the town hall square.
jean, who had seen them pass by, made his escape from the house, and after his father had made a long search for him, he found him among the learned goats and trick dogs, uttering shouts of laughter and sitting on the knees of an old clown.
three days later, just as they were sitting down to dinner, the wheelwright and his wife noticed that their son was not in the house. they looked for him in the garden, and as they did not find him, his father went out into the road and shouted at the top of his voice, “jean!”
night came on. a brown vapor arose making distant objects look still farther away and giving them a dismal, weird appearance. three tall pines, close at hand, seemed to be weeping. still there was no reply, but the air appeared to be full of indistinct sighing. the father listened for some time, thinking he heard a sound first in one direction, then in another, and, almost beside himself, he ran, out into the night, calling incessantly “jean! jean!”
he ran along thus until daybreak, filling the, darkness with his shouts, terrifying stray animals, torn by a terrible anguish and fearing that he was losing his mind. his wife, seated on the stone step of their home, sobbed until morning.
they did not find their son. they both aged rapidly in their inconsolable sorrow. finally they sold their house and set out to search together.
they inquired of the shepherds on the hillsides, of the tradesmen passing by, of the peasants in the villages and of the authorities in the towns. but their boy had been lost a long time and no one knew anything about him. he had probably forgotten his own name by this time and also the name of his village, and his parents wept in silence, having lost hope.
before long their money came to an end, and they worked out by the day in the farms and inns, doing the most menial work, eating what was left from the tables, sleeping on the ground and suffering from cold. then as they became enfeebled by hard work no one would employ them any longer, and they were forced to beg along the high roads. they accosted passers-by in an entreating voice and with sad, discouraged faces; they begged a morsel of bread from the harvesters who were dining around a tree in the fields at noon, and they ate in silence seated on the edge of a ditch. an innkeeper to whom they told their story said to them one day:
“i know some one who had lost their daughter, and they found her in paris.”
they at once set out for paris.
when they entered the great city they were bewildered by its size and by the crowds that they saw. but they knew that jean must be in the midst of all these people, though they did not know how to set about looking for him. then they feared that they might not recognize him, for he was only five years old when they last saw him.
they visited every place, went through all the streets, stopping whenever they saw a group of people, hoping for some providential meeting, some extraordinary luck, some compassionate fate.
they frequently walked at haphazard straight ahead, leaning one against the other, looking so sad and poverty-stricken that people would give them alms without their asking.
they spent every sunday at the doors of the churches, watching the crowds entering and leaving, trying to distinguish among the faces one that might be familiar. several times they thought they recognized him, but always found they had made a mistake.
in the vestibule of one of the churches which they visited the most frequently there was an old dispenser of holy water who had become their friend. he also had a very sad history, and their sympathy for him had established a bond of close friendship between them. it ended by them all three living together in a poor lodging on the top floor of a large house situated at some distance, quite on the outskirts of the city, and the wheelwright would sometimes take his new friend's place at the church when the latter was ill.
winter came, a very severe winter. the poor holy water sprinkler died and the parish priest appointed the wheelwright, whose misfortunes had come to his knowledge, to replace him. he went every morning and sat in the same place, on the same chair, wearing away the old stone pillar by continually leaning against it. he would gaze steadily at every man who entered the church and looked forward to sunday with as much impatience as a schoolboy, for on that day the church was filled with people from morning till night.
he became very old, growing weaker each day from the dampness of the church, and his hope oozed away gradually.
he now knew by sight all the people who came to the services; he knew their hours, their manners, could distinguish their step on the stone pavement.
his interests had become so contracted that the entrance of a stranger in the church was for him a great event. one day two ladies came in; one was old, the other young—a mother and daughter probably. behind them came a man who was following them. he bowed to them as they came out, and after offering them some holy water, he took the arm of the elder lady.
“that must be the fiance of the younger one,” thought the wheelwright. and until evening he kept trying to recall where he had formerly seen a young man who resembled this one. but the one he was thinking of must be an old man by this time, for it seemed as if he had known him down home in his youth.
the same man frequently came again to walk home with the ladies, and this vague, distant, familiar resemblance which he could not place worried the old man so much that he made his wife come with him to see if she could help his impaired memory.
one evening as it was growing dusk the three strangers entered together. when they had passed the old man said:
“well, do you know him?”
his wife anxiously tried to ransack her memory. suddenly she said in a low tone:
“yes—yes—but he is darker, taller, stouter and is dressed like a gentleman, but, father, all the same, it is your face when you were young!”
the old man started violently.
it was true. he looked like himself and also like his brother who was dead, and like his father, whom he remembered while he was yet young. the old couple were so affected that they could not speak. the three persons came out and were about to leave the church.
the man touched his finger to the holy water sprinkler. then the old man, whose hand was trembling so that he was fairly sprinkling the ground with holy water, exclaimed:
“jean!”
the young man stopped and looked at him.
he repeated in a lower tone:
“jean!”
the two women looked at them without understanding.
he then said for the third time, sobbing as he did so:
“jean!”
the man stooped down, with his face close to the old man's, and as a memory of his childhood dawned on him he replied:
“papa pierre, mamma jeanne!”
he had forgotten everything, his father's surname and the name of his native place, but he always remembered those two words that he had so often repeated: “papa pierre, mamma jeanne.”
he sank to the floor, his face on the old man's knees, and he wept, kissing now his father and then his mother, while they were almost breathless from intense joy.
the two ladies also wept, understanding as they did that some great happiness had come to pass.
then they all went to the young man's house and he told them his history. the circus people had carried him off. for three years he traveled with them in various countries. then the troupe disbanded, and one day an old lady in a chateau had paid to have him stay with her because she liked his appearance. as he was intelligent, he was sent to school, then to college, and the old lady having no children, had left him all her money. he, for his part, had tried to find his parents, but as he could remember only the two names, “papa pierre, mamma jeanne,” he had been unable to do so. now he was about to be married, and he introduced his fiancee, who was very good and very pretty.
when the two old people had told their story in their turn he kissed them once more. they sat up very late that night, not daring to retire lest the happiness they had so long sought should escape them again while they were asleep.
but misfortune had lost its hold on them and they were happy for the rest of their lives.
