Paul knew by heart many verses of a forbidden poet named Alfred de Musset. The strange quality of these verses troubled me, and yet I was fascinated by them. In class he would whisper them, in a scarcely perceptible voice, into my ear; and although my conscience accused me, I used to allow him to begin:
Jacque was very quiet as he looked at Marie,I know not what that sleeping maidenHad of mystery in her features, the noblest ever seen.
In my brother's study, where from time to time, when I was overwhelmed with sorrow over his departure, I isolated myself, I had seen on a shelf in his book-case a large volume of this poet's works, and often I had been tempted to take it down; but my parents had said to me: “You are not to touch any of the books that are there without permission from us,” and my conscience always gave me pause.
As to asking for permission, I knew only too well that my request would be refused.
I will here recount a dream that I had in my fourteenth year. It came to me during one of those mild and sweet nights that are ushered in by a long and delicious twilight.
In the room where I had spent all the years of my childhood I had been lulled to sleep by the sound of songs that the sailors and young girls sang as they danced around the flower-twined May-pole. Until the moment of deep sleep I had listened to those very old national airs which the children of the people were singing in a loud, free voice, but distance softened and mellowed and poetized the voices as they traversed the tranquil silence; strangely enough I had been soothed by the noisy mirth and overflowing joyousness of these beings who, during their fleeting youth, are so much more artless than we, and more oblivious of death.
In my dream it was twilight, not a sad one however, but on the contrary, the air was soft and mild and overflowing with sweet odors like that of a real May night. I was in the yard of our house, the aspect of which was not changed in any particular, but as I walked beside the walls all abloom with jasmine, honeysuckle and roses, I felt restless and troubled as if I was seeking for some unnamable something; I seemed to have a consciousness that someone, whom I wished ardently to see, awaited my coming; I felt as if there was about to happen to me something so strange and wonderful as to intoxicate me by its very advance.
At a spot where grew a very old rosebush, one that had been planted by an ancestor and for that reason guarded sacredly, although it did not bear more than one rose in two or three years, I saw a young girl standing motionless with a seductive and mysterious smile upon her lips.
The twilight became a little deeper, the air more languorous.
Everywhere it became darker; but about her shone a sort of indeterminate light, like that coming from a reflector, and her figure outlined itself clearly against the shadows in the background.
I guessed that she was very beautiful and young; but her forehead and her eyes were hidden from me by the veil of night; indeed, I could see nothing very distinctly except the exquisite oval of her lower face, and her mouth which was parted smilingly. She leaned against the old flowerless rosebush, almost in its branches. Night came on rapidly. The girl seemed perfectly at home in the garden; she had come I knew not from where, for there was no door by which she could have entered; she appeared to find it as natural to be here as I found it natural to find her here.
I drew very close in order to get a glimpse of her eyes which puzzled me; suddenly, in spite of the darkness that became ever thicker, I saw them very distinctly; they also were smiling like the lips;—and they were not just any impersonal eyes, such, for instance, as may be found in a statue representing youth; no, on the contrary they were very particularly somebody's eyes; more and more they impressed me as belonging to someone already much beloved whom I, with transports of infinite joy and tenderness had found again.
I waked from sleep with a start, and as I did so I sought to retain the phantom being who faded away and became more and more intangible and unreal, in proportion as my mind grew clearer through the effort it made to remember. Could it be possible that she was not and had never been more than a vision? Had nothingness re-engulfed and forever effaced her? I longed to sleep again so that I might see her; the thought that she was an illusion, nothing more than the figment of a dream, caused me great dejection and almost overwhelmed me with hopelessness.
And it took me a very long time to forget her; I loved her, loved her tenderly, and the thought of her always stirred into life an emotion that was sweet but sad; and during those moments everything unconnected with her seemed colorless and worthless. It was love, true love with all its great melancholy and deep mystery, with its overwhelming but sad enchantment, love that, like a perfume, endows with a fragrance all it touches; and that corner of the garden where she had appeared to me and the old flowerless rosebush that had clasped her in its branches awakened in me, because of her, agonizing but delicious memories.
And again came radiant June. It was evening, the exquisite hour of twilight. I was alone in my brother's study where I had been for some time; the window was opened wide to a sky all golden and pink, and I stood beside it and listened to the martins uttering their shrill cries as they circled and darted above the old roofs.
No one knew that I was there, and never before had I felt so isolated at the top of the house, nor more tempted by the unknown.
With a beating heart I opened a volume of De Musset's poems: his Don Paez.
The first phrases were as musical and rhythmical as if sung by a seductive golden-voiced siren:
Black eyebrows, snow-white hands, and to indicate the tinynessOf her feet, I need only say she was an Andalusian countess.
That spring night when the darkness fell about me, when my eyes, although never so close to the book, could no longer distinguish anything of the enchanting verses save rows of little lines that showed gray against the white of the page, I went out into the town alone.
In the almost deserted streets, not yet lighted, the rows of linden and acacia trees all abloom, deepened the shadows and perfumed the air with their heavy fragrance. I pulled my felt hat over my eyes and, like Don Paez, I strode along with a light supple step, and looked up at balconies and indulged in I know not what little childish dreams of Spanish twilights and Andalusian serenades.
Vacation came again, and for the third time we took the journey to the South, and there in the glorious August and September sunshine all passed off in the same fashion as during preceding summers; the same games with my loyal band, the expeditions to the vineyards and mountains; in the ruins of Castelnau, the same brooding over mediaeval times, and, in the sequestered woodland path where we had struck our vein of silver, we still eagerly turned up the red soil, putting on meantime the airs of bold adventurers,—the little Peyrals, however, no longer believed in the mines.
These beginnings of summer, always so alike, deluded me into thinking that in spite of my occasional fears my childhood would be indefinitely prolonged; but I no longer felt “joy at waking;” a sort of disquietude, such as oppresses one when he has left his duty undone, weighed upon me more and more heavily each morning when I thought that time was flying, that the vacation would soon be over, and that I still lacked the courage to come to a decision in regard to my future.
And one day, when September was more than half over, I realized, because of the particularly torturing anxiety I felt when I waked, that I must no longer defer the matter—the term which I had allotted to myself was over.
In my heart of hearts I had more than half determined what my decision was to be; but before it could be rendered effective it was necessary for me to avow it, and I promised myself that the day should not pass away without my having, as courageously as possible, accomplished that task. It was my intention to first confide in my brother; for although I feared that in the beginning he would oppose me with all his power, I hoped that he would finally take my part and help me carry the day.
Therefore, after the mid-day dinner, when the sun was hottest, I carried my pen and paper into my uncle's garden, and I locked myself in there for the purpose of writing my letter. It was one of my boyhood habits to study or write in the open air, and often I chose the most singular places—tree-tops or the roof—for my work.
It was a hot and cloudless September afternoon. The old garden, silent and melancholy as ever, gave me, strangely enough, more than the customary feeling of regret that I was so far away from my mother, that all of summer would pass without my seeing my home and the flowers in the beloved little yard. And then, too, what I was upon the point of writing would result in separating me farther from all that I loved, and for that reason I felt extraordinarily sad. It seemed to me that there was something a little funereal in the air of the garden, as if the walls, the plum trees, the vine-covered bower, even the very alfalfa fields beyond the garden, were vitally interested in this, the first grave act of my life which was about to take place under their eyes.
For the purpose of writing I hesitated between two or three places, all blazing hot and almost shadeless. It was my way of gaining time, an attempt to delay writing that letter which, with the ideas I then had, would render my decision, once I had announced it, irrevocable. The sun-baked earth was already strewn with red vine branches and withered leaves; the holly-hocks and dahlias, grown tall as trees, had a few meagre blossoms at the tops of their long stalks; the blazing sun perfected and turned to gold the musk-scented grapes that always ripened a little late; but in spite of the excessive heat and the exquisite limpid blue of the sky one felt that summer was over.
I finally selected the arbor at the end of the garden for my purpose. Its vines were stripped of their leaves, but the steel-blue butterflies and the wasps still came and posted themselves upon the tendrils of the grape-vines.
There in the calm and tranquil solitude, in the summer-like silence filled with the musical chirp of insects, I wrote and timidly signed my compact with the sea.
Of the letter itself I remember very little; but I recall distinctly the emotion with which I enclosed it in its envelope—I felt as if I had forever sealed my destiny.
After a few moments of deep reverie I wrote the address—my brother's name and the name of a country in the far Orient where he then was—on the envelope. There was now nothing more to do save to take it to the village post-office; but I remained seated there in the arbor for a long time in a dreamy mood. I leaned against the warm wall where the lizards ran back and forth, and held upon my knees, with a feeling of uncertainty and dismay, the little square of paper wherein I had settled my future. Then I was seized with a longing to look towards the horizon, to have a glimpse of the great spaces beyond the garden; and I put my foot into the familiar breach in the wall by means of which I often mounted, in order to watch the flight of elusive butterflies, and, with the aid of my hands, I raised myself to the top of the wall and leaned there propped up by my elbows. The same well-known prospect greeted me: the hillsides covered with red vines, the wooded mountains whose trees were rapidly being stripped of their yellow leaves, and above, perched high, the noble reddish-brown ruin of Castelnau. And in the nearer distance was Bories with its old rounded porch white with lime-wash; and as I looked at it I seemed to hear the plaintive refrain: “Ah! Ah! the good, good story!” sung in a strange voice, and at the same time there appeared to me the vision of the pinkish-yellow butterfly which two years before I had pricked with a pin, and placed under glass in my little museum.
It drew near the hour for the ancient country diligence, that took the letters away from the village, to depart, and I scrambled down from the wall, and after locking the garden gate, I slowly directed my steps towards the post-office.
Like one with eyes fixed upon a vision, I walked along without taking notice of anything or any one. My spirit was wandering far away, in the fern-carpeted forests of the delicious isle, along the sands of gloomy Senegal where had lived the uncle who had interested himself in my museum, and across the South Pacific Ocean where the dolphins were passing.
The assured nearness and certainty of these things intoxicated me; for the first time in my existence the world and life seemed to open before me; my way was illuminated by a light altogether new to it: it is true the light was a little mournful, a little sad, but it was powerful nevertheless, and penetrated to the far distant horizon where lie old age and death.
Many little childish images obtruded themselves from time to time into my lofty dream; I saw myself in a sailor's uniform walking upon the sun-blistered quays of tropical lands; and I prefigured my home-comings, after perilous voyages, bringing with me cases filled to the brim with wonderful things out of which cockroaches escaped as they had done formerly in Jeanne's garden when her father's boxes were unpacked.
But suddenly a pang went through my heart: those returns from distant countries could not take place for many years—the faces welcoming me home would be changed by time! Instantly I pictured those beloved faces to myself; in a wan vision I saw them all together. Although its members received me with smiles of joyous welcome, it was a sad group to look upon, for wrinkles seamed every brow, and my mother had white curls such as she has to-day. And my great aunt Bertha, already so old, would she, too, be there? With a sort of uneasiness, I was rapidly making a calculation of my aunt Bertha's age when I arrived at the post-office.
I did not hesitate, however; with a hand that trembled only a little I slipped my letter into the box, and the die was cast.
I will end these reminiscences here, because what follows is not yet distant enough from me to be submitted to the unknown reader. And besides it seems to me that my childhood really came to an end upon the day in which I announced my decision in regard to my future.
I was then fourteen and a half years of age, and that gave me, therefore, three years and a half in which to prepare myself for the naval academy, consequently I had time to do it thoroughly and properly.
But in the meantime I had to encounter many refusals and all sorts of difficulties before my admittance to the Borda. And later I lived through many troublous years; years replete with struggles and mistakes,—I had many a Calvary to climb; I had to pay cruelly and in full for having been reared a sensitive, shy little creature, by force of will I had to recast and harden my physical as well as my moral being. One day, when I was about twenty-seven years of age, a circus director, after having seen my muscles that then had the elasticity and strength of steel, gave utterance, in his admiration, to the truest words I have ever had addressed to me: “What a pity, sir,” he said, “that your education commenced so late!”
My sister and I had expected to visit the mountains again the next summer.
But Azrael passed our way; terrible and unexpected misfortunes disrupted our tranquil and happy family life.
And it was not until fifteen years later, after I had been over the greater part of the earth, that I revisited this corner of France.
All was greatly changed there; my uncle and aunt slept in the graveyard; my boy cousins had left, and my girl cousin, who already had threads of silver among her dark locks, was preparing to quit this part of the country forever, this empty house in which she did not wish to live alone; and the Titi and the Marciette (whose names were no longer prefaced by the article) had grown into tall young ladies whom I would not have recognized.
Between two long voyages, in a hurry as always, my life hastening feverishly upon its way, in remembrance of bygone days, I made this pilgrimage to my uncle's house to see it once more, and for the last time, before it was delivered into the hands of strangers.
It was in November, and the cold gray sky completely changed the aspect of the country, which I had never seen before except under the glorious summer sun.
After spending my only morning in revisiting a thousand places, my melancholy ever augmented by the lowering winter clouds, I found that I had forgotten the old garden and the vine-clad arbor in whose meagre shade I had come to so momentous a decision, and I wished to run there, at the last moment, before my carriage took me away from this spot forever.
“You will have to go alone,” said my cousin, who was busy packing her trunks. She gave me the large key, the same large key that I carried in the warm and radiant days of old when I went there, net in hand, to catch the butterflies . . . oh! the summers of my childhood, how marvellous and how enchanting they were!
For the last time of all, I entered the garden, which under the gray sky appeared shrunken to me. I went first to the arbor, now leafless and desolate, in which I had written the portentous letter to my brother, and, by means of the same breach in the wall that had served me in days gone by, I lifted myself to the coping to get a hasty glimpse of the surrounding country, to bid it a last farewell. Bories looked singularly near and small to me, it was almost unrecognizably so, and the mountains beyond seemed diminished also, appeared no higher than little hills. And all of these things that formerly I had seen flooded with sunlight, now looked dull and sinister in the wan, gray November light, and under the dark and wintry clouds. I felt as if with the commencement of nature's autumn, my life's autumn had also dawned.
And the world, the world which I had thought so immense and so full of wonder and charm the day that I leaned on this same wall, after I had made my decision,—the whole wide world, did it not look as faded and shrunken to me now as this poor landscape?
And especially Bories, that under the autumnal sky looked like a phantom of itself, filled me with the deepest sadness.
As I gazed at it I recalled the pinkish-yellow butterfly still under its glass in my museum; it had remained there in the same spot, and had preserved its fresh bright hues during the time that I had sailed all round the globe. For many years I had not thought of the association between the two things; but as soon as I remembered the yellow butterfly, which was recalled to my mind by Bories, I heard a small voice within me sing over and over, very softly: “Ah! Ah! the good, good story!” . . . The little voice was strange and flute-like, but above all it was sad, sad enough for tears, sad enough to sing over the tomb where lie buried the vanished years and dead summers.