The Aspirations of Jean Servien

Excerpt

Jean Servien was born in a back-shop in the Rue Notre-Dame des Champs.  His father was a bookbinder and worked for the Religious Houses.  Jean was a little weakling child, and his mother nursed him at her breast as she sewed the books, sheet by sheet, with the curved needle of the trade.  One day as she was crossing the shop, humming a song, in the words of which she found expression for the vague, splendid visions of her maternal ambition, her foot slipped on the boards, which were moist with paste.