He is hunchbacked, deformed. His legs are too thin, his arms too long, his body ill-proportioned.

He also comes into Lucas's room. He beats on the door with his little fists until Lucas opens it. He climbs onto the bed.

Lucas puts a record on the gramophone and the child rocks on the bed.

Lucas puts on another record and the child hides under the covers.

Lucas picks up a piece of paper, draws a rabbit, a chicken, a pig. The child laughs and kisses the paper.

Lucas draws a giraffe and an elephant. The child shakes his head and tears up the paper.

Lucas constructs a sandpit for the child. He buys him a spade, a watering can, and a wheelbarrow.

He makes him a swing. He builds him a car from a box and some wheels. He sits the child in the box and pulls him around. He shows him the fish. He lets him go inside the rabbit hutch. The child tries to stroke the rabbits, but the rabbits run off crazily in all directions.

The child cries.

Lucas goes into town and buys a teddy bear.

The child looks at the bear. He takes it, talks to it, shakes it, and throws it at Lucas's feet.

Yasmine picks up the bear. She strokes it. "He's a nice bear. He's a lovely little teddy bear."

The child looks at his mother and bangs his head against the floor of the kitchen. Yasmine puts the bear down and takes the child in her arms. The child starts bawling. He pummels his mother's head and kicks her in the stomach. Yasmine lets him down, and the child hides under the table until evening.

That evening, Lucas brings back a tiny kitten he has saved from Joseph's pitchfork. Standing on the kitchen floor, the little animal mews and trembles all over.

Yasmine places a bowl of milk in front of it. The cat continues mewing.

Yasmine places the cat in the child's cradle.

The child climbs into his cradle, lies down next to the little cat, cuddles up to it. The cat struggles and claws the child on the face and hands.

A few days later, the cat eats everything it is given and sleeps in the cradle at the child's feet.

Lucas asks Joseph to get him a little dog.

One day, Joseph turns up with a black puppy with long curly hair. Yasmine is hanging out the washing in the garden; the child is having a nap. Yasmine knocks on Lucas's door. She shouts, "Someone to see you!"

She hides in Grandmother's room.

Lucas goes out to meet Joseph. Joseph says, "Here's the dog I promised you. It's a sheepdog from the plains. It'll be a good guard dog."

Lucas says, "Thank you, Joseph. Come in and have a glass of wine."

They go into the kitchen; they drink some wine. Joseph asks, "Won't you introduce me to your wife?"

Lucas says, "Yasmine is not my wife. She had nowhere to go, so I took her in."

Joseph says, "The whole town knows her story. She's a fine- looking girl. The puppy is for her child, I presume."

"Yes, for Yasmine's child."

Before leaving, Joseph says, "You're very young to be taking care of a woman and a child, Lucas. It's a big responsibility."

Lucas says, "That's my business."

Once Joseph has gone, Yasmine comes out. Lucas is holding the little dog in his arms.

"Look what Joseph brought for Mathias."

Yasmine says, "He saw me. Did he say anything?"

"Yes. He thinks you're very beautiful. You're wrong to worry about what people might think about us, Yasmine. You should come with me into town one day to buy yourself some clothes. You've been wearing the same dress since you got here."

"One dress is enough. I don't need another one. I won't go into town."

Lucas says, "Come on, let's show Mathias the dog."

The child is underneath the kitchen table with the cat.

Yasmine says, "Mathi, it's for you. It's a present."

Lucas sits on the corner seat with the dog. The child climbs onto his knees. He looks at the dog, pulls back the hair covering its muzzle. The dog licks the child's face. The cat hisses at the dog and runs away into the garden.

It is getting progressively colder. Lucas says to Yasmine, "Mathias needs warm clothes. So do you."

Yasmine says, "I can knit. I'll need some wool and some needles."

Lucas buys a basket of balls of wool and several pairs of needles for knitting different thicknesses. Yasmine knits pullovers, socks, scarves, gloves, hats. With the leftover wool she makes up patchwork blankets. Lucas praises her.

Yasmine says, "I can also sew. At home I had my mother's old sewing machine."

"Do you want me to go and fetch it?" "You'd be brave enough to go to my aunt's house?"

Lucas sets off with the wheelbarrow. He knocks at the door of Yasmine's aunt. A youthful-looking woman comes to the door.

"What do you want?"

"I've come to collect Yasmine's sewing machine."

She says, "Come in."

Lucas goes into a very clean kitchen. Yasmine's aunt stares at him.

"So you're the one. Poor boy. You're only a child."

Lucas says, "I'm seventeen."

"And she will soon be nineteen. How is she?"

"Well."

"And the child?"

"Also very well."

After a silence she says, "I heard that the child was born deformed. It is God's punishment."

Lucas asks, "Where is the sewing machine?"

The aunt opens a door to a narrow room without a window.

"Everything that belongs to her is here. Take it."

There is a sewing machine and a wicker basket. Lucas asks, "There was nothing else here?"

"Her bed. I burned it."

Lucas carries the sewing machine and the basket to the wheelbarrow. He says, "Thank you, madame."

"You're welcome. Good riddance."

It rains a lot. Yasmine sews and knits. The child has to play indoors. He spends the day under the table with the dog and the cat.

The child can already say a few words, but he can't walk yet. When Lucas tries to stand him upright, he struggles free, crawls away on all fours, and escapes under the table.

Lucas goes to the bookseller's. He picks out some large sheets of white paper, some colored pencils, and some picture books.

Victor asks, "You have a child?"

"Yes. But he's not mine."

Victor says, "There are so many orphans. Peter was asking after you. You should go and see him."

Lucas says, "I'm very busy."

"I understand. With a child. At your age."

Lucas goes home. The child is asleep on a rug under the kitchen table. In Grandmother's room Yasmine is sewing. Lucas puts the packet down next to the child. He goes into the bedroom and kisses Yasmine on the neck, and Yasmine stops sewing.

The child draws. He draws the dog and the cat. He also draws other animals. He draws trees, flowers, the house. He also draws his mother.

Lucas asks him, "Why don't you ever draw me?"

The child shakes his head and hides under the table with his books.

On Christmas Eve, Lucas chops down a Christmas tree in the forest. He buys some colored glass balls and some candles. In Grandmother's room he decorates the tree with Yasmine's help. The presents go under the tree: material and a pair of warm boots for Yasmine, a thick sweater for Lucas, books and a rocking horse for Mathias.

Yasmine roasts a duck in the oven. She cooks potatoes, cabbage, beans. The biscuits were made some days ago.

When the first star appears in the sky, Lucas lights the candles on the tree. Yasmine comes into the room with Mathias in her arms.

Lucas says, "Go and get your presents, Mathias. The books and the horse are for you."

The child says, "I want the horse. He's nice, the horse."

He tries unsuccessfully to climb on the horse's back. He cries.

"The horse is too big. Lucas did it. He's a nasty Lucas. He made the horse too big for Mathi."

The child cries and bangs his head against the floor of the bedroom. Lucas picks him up; he shakes him.