The poor old grandmother who sang so constantly was dying.
We were all standing about her bed at nightfall one spring evening. She had been ailing scarcely more than forty-eight hours; but the doctor said that on account of her great age she could not rally, and he pronounced her end to be very near.
Her mind had become clear; she no longer mistook our names, and in a sweet calm voice she begged us to remain near her—it was doubtless the voice of other days, the one that I had never heard before.
As I stood close to my father's side I turned my eyes from my dying grandmother, and they wandered about the room with its old-fashioned furniture. I looked especially at the pictures of bouquets in vases that hung upon the wall. Oh! those poor little water colors in my grandmother's room, how ingenuous they were! They all bore this inscription: “A Bouquet for my mother,” and under this there was a little verse of four lines dedicated to her which I could now read and understand. These works of art had been painted by my father in his early boyhood, and he had presented them to his mother upon each joyful anniversary. The poor, unpretentious little pictures bore testimony to the humble life of those early days, and they spoke of the sacred intimacy of mother and son,—they had been painted during the time which followed those great ordeals, the wars, the English invasion and the burning over of the country by the enemy. For the first time I realized that my grandmother too had been young; that, without doubt, before the trouble with her head, my father had loved her as I loved my mamma, and I felt that he would sorrow greatly when he lost her; I felt sorry for him and I was also full of remorse because I had laughed at her singing, and had been amused when she spoke to her image reflected in the looking-glass.
They sent me down stairs. On different pretexts, the reason for which I did not understand, they kept me away from the room until the day was over; then they took me to the house of our friends, the D——s, where I was to have dinner with Lucette.
When, at about half past eight, I returned home with my nurse, I insisted upon going straight to my grandmother's room.
When I entered I was struck with the order and the air of profound peace that pervaded the room. My father was sitting motionless at the head of the bed—he was in the shadow, the open curtains were draped with great precision, and on the pillow, just in its middle, was the head of my sleeping grandmother; her whole position had about it something very regular—something that suggested eternal rest.
My mother and sister were seated beside a chiffonier near the door, from which place they had kept watch over my grandmother during her illness. As soon as I entered they signalled to me with their hands as if to say: “Softly, softly, make no noise; she is asleep.” The shade of their lamp threw a vivid light upon the material they were busied with, a number of little silk squares, brown, yellow, gray, etc., that I recognized as pieces of their old dresses and hat ribbons.
At first I thought that they were working upon things which it is customary to prepare for people about to die; but when I, in a very low voice and with some uneasiness, questioned them about it, they explained that they were making sachets which were to be sold for charity.
I said that I wished to bid grandmother good night before retiring, and they allowed me to go towards the bed; but before I reached the middle of the room they, after glancing quickly at each other, changed their minds.
“No, no,” they said in a very low voice, “come back, you might disturb her.”
But before they spoke I came to a halt of myself, I was overwhelmed with terror—I understood.
Although fear kept me fixed to the spot I noted with astonishment that my grandmother was not at all disagreeable to look at; I had never before seen a dead person, and I had imagined until then, that when the spirit took its departure all that remained was a grinning, hideous skeleton. On the contrary my grandmother had upon her face an extremely sweet and tranquil smile; she was as beautiful as ever, and her face appeared to be rejuvenated and filled with a holy peace.
Then there passed through my mind one of those sad flashes which sometimes come to little children and permit them to see for a moment into hidden depths, and I reflected: How can grandmother be in heaven, how am I to understand the division of the one body into two parts, for that which was left for interment, was it not my grandmother herself, ah! was it not she even to the very expression that she bore in life?
After that I stole away with a bruised heart and downcast spirit, not daring to ask a question of any one, fearful lest what I had so unerringly divined would be confirmed, I did not wish to hear the dread and terrible word pronounced. . . .
For a long time thereafter little silken sachet bags were always associated in my mind with the idea of death.
I still have in my memory, almost agonizing impressions of a serious illness which I had when I was about eight years old. Those about me called it scarlet fever, and its very name seemed to have a diabolical quality.
I had the fever in March, which was cold and blustering and dreary that year, and every evening as night fell, if by chance my mother was not near me, a great sadness would overwhelm my soul. (It was an oppression coming on at twilight, from which animals, and beings with a temperament like mine suffer almost equally.)
My curtains were kept open, and I always had a view of the pathetic looking little table with its cups of gruel and bottles of medicines. And as I gazed at these things, so suggestive of sickness, they took on strange shapes in the darkness of the silent room,—and at such times there passed through my head a procession of grotesque, hideous and alarming images.
Upon two successive evenings at dusk there appeared to me, in the half delirium of fever, two persons who caused me the most extreme terror.
The first one was an old woman, hump-backed and very ugly, but with a fascinating ugliness, who without my hearing her open the door, without my seeing any one rise to meet her, stole noiselessly to my side. She departed, however, without speaking to me; but as she turned to go her hump became visible, and I saw that there was an opening in it, and there popped out from this hole the green head of a parrot which the old woman carried in her hump. This creature called out, “Cuckoo,” in a thin, squeaking, far-away voice, and then withdrew again into the frightful old hag's hump. Oh! when I heard that “Cuckoo!” a cold perspiration formed on my forehead; but suddenly the woman disappeared and then I realized that it was only a dream.
The next evening a tall thin man, clothed in the black dress of a minister, appeared to me. He did not come near me, but kept close to the wall and whirled, with body all bent over, rapidly and noiselessly about the room. His miserable, thin legs and the gown of his dress stood out stiff and straight as he turned quickly. And—most horrible of all—he had for a head the skull of a large white bird with a long beak, which was a monstrous exaggeration of a sea-mew's skull, bleached by the sun and wind and waves, that I had the previous summer found upon the beach at the Island. (I believe this old man's visit coincided with the time when I was worst, almost in danger.) After he had made one or two revolutions about the room, he quickly and silently began to rise from the floor. Ever moving his thin legs he reached the cornice, then higher and higher still he rose, above the pictures and the looking-glasses, until he was lost to sight in the twilight shadows that lay near the ceiling.
And for two or three years after this event the faces of those visions haunted me. On winter evenings I thought of them with a shudder as I mounted the stairway, which at that period it was not customary to light. “If they should be there,” I would say to myself; “suppose one of them is lying in wait to pursue me, and stretch out their hands and try to catch me by the legs.”
And truly I will not be sure that I would not now feel, should I encourage myself, some of the old-time fear which that woman and man inspired in me; they were for some time at the head of the list of my childhood terrors, and for very long they led the procession of visions and bad dreams.
Many gloomy apparitions haunted the first years of my life which otherwise were so uncommonly sweet. I was especially addicted to indulging in sad reflections at nightfall; I had impressions of my career being cut short by an early death. Too carefully sheltered and protected at this period, and yet in some measure forced mentally, I may be likened to a flower that lacks color and vitality because it has been raised in an unwholesome atmosphere. I should have been surrounded by hardy, mischievous, noisy playmates of my own age and sex, but instead of that I played only with gentle little girls. I was always careful and precise in my manners, and my curled hair and sedate bearing gave me the appearance of a little eighteenth century nobleman.
After that long fever, the very name of which has a sinister sound, I recall the delight I felt when they allowed me to go out into the air, when I was permitted to go down into our beloved yard. The day chosen for my first airing was a radiantly beautiful and clear morning in April. Seated under the bower of jasmine and honeysuckle I felt as if I were experiencing the enchantment of paradise, of another Eden. Everything was budding and blossoming; without my knowledge, during the time that I was confined to my bed, this wonderful drama of the spring had enacted itself upon the earth. I had not often seen this wonderful and magical renewal which has delighted man through all the ages, and to which only the very aged seem indifferent; it ravished me and I allowed my joy to take possession of me almost to the point of intoxication.—Oh! that pure, warm, soft air; the glorious sunlight and the tender, fresh green of the young plants and the budding trees that already cast a little shade. And in myself there was an unwonted strength that bespoke recovery, and I rejoiced mightily when I breathed in the sweet air and felt the flood of new life.
My brother was a tall fellow of twenty-one who had the freedom of the house and grounds in which to work out any of his fancies. During my convalescence I entertained myself greatly speculating about something he was busy with in the garden, which something I was dying of impatience to see. At the end of the yard, in a lovely nook under an old plum tree, my brother was making a tiny lake; he had dug it out and cemented it like a cistern, and from the country round about he procured stones and quantities of moss with which to make the banks about the lake romantic looking; he also constructed rocky elevations and grottoes out of stones and mosses.
And this work was finished the day that I went out for the first time; they had even put little gold fish into the water, and they turned on the tiny fountain and it played in my honor.
I approached it with ecstasy, and I found that it greatly surpassed in beauty anything that my imagination had been able to conjure up. And when my brother told me it was mine, I felt a joy so intense that it seemed to me it must last forever. Oh! what unexpected joy to possess it for my very own! And what happiness to know that I could enjoy it every single day during the warm and beautiful months that were to come. And the thought of being able to live out of doors again, the prospect of playing in every nook of that lovely garden, as I had done the previous summer, was rapture to me.
I remained at the edge of the pond a long time, looking at it and admiring it unceasingly, and I breathed in the sweet, mild spring air, and warmed myself in the radiant sunlight so long denied to me. The old plum tree above my head, planted so long ago by one of my ancestors, and now almost at the end of its usefulness, spread its lacy curtain of new leaves to the tender blue of the sky, and the tiny fountain in its shade continued its tuneful melody as if it were a little hurdy-gurdy celebrating my return to health.
To-day that old plum tree is dead and its trunk the only thing left of it, and spared out of respect, is covered, like a ruin, with ivy vines.
But the pond, with its grottoes and islets, still remains intact; time has given it the appearance of genuine nature herself. Its greenish stones look old and decayed; the mosses, the delicate little plants brought from the river, and the rushes and wild iris have acclimated themselves, and dragon flies that stray through the town take refuge there—a bit of wild nature has established itself in that little corner and I hope it will never be disturbed.
I am more loyally attached to that spot than to any other, although I have loved many places; in no other one have I found so much peace; there I feel tranquil, there I refresh myself and acquire youth and new life. That little corner is my sacred Mecca, so much indeed is it to me that should any one destroy it I would feel as if some vital thing in my life had lost balance, would feel that I had missed my footing, or almost imagine that it presaged the beginning of my end.
The reverent feeling that I have for the place has been born, I believe, from my sea-faring life, with its long voyages to distant places and its dreary exiles during which I thought and dreamed of it constantly.
There is in particular one little grotto for which I have an especial affection: the memory of it has often, in times of depression and melancholy, during the years of weary exile heartened me.
After the angel Azrael had so cruelly passed our way, after reverses of many sorts, and during that sad term when I was a wanderer on the face of the earth, and my widowed mother and my aunt Claire were left alone in the beloved but deserted home that was almost as silent as a tomb, I experienced many a heartache as I thought of the dear hearthstone and of the things so familiar to my childhood that were doubtless going to ruin through neglect. I felt especially anxious to know if the storms of winter and the hands of time had destroyed the delicate arch of that grotto; and strange as it may seem, if those little moss-covered rocks had fallen in I would have felt that an almost irreparable breach had been made in my own life.
At the side of the pond there is an old gray wall which is an integral part of the corner that I call my Holy Mecca; I think it is the very centre of the sacred place, and I recall the tiniest details of it. I can picture to myself the scarcely visible mosses that grow there, and the gaps made by time, which the spiders now inhabit. Growing up at the back of the wall there is an arbor of ivy and honeysuckles whose shade I sought daily every beautiful summer day for the purpose of studying my lessons. But I lounged there lazily, as a school-boy will, and allowed all my attention to be absorbed by those gray stones with their teeming world of insects. Not only do I love and venerate that old wall as the Moslems love their holiest mosque, but I regard it also as something which actually protects me; as something which conserves my life and prolongs my youth. I would not suffer any one to change it in the least, and should it be demolished I would feel as if the very supports under my life were insecure. May it not be because certain things persist, and are known to us throughout our lives, that we borrow from thence delusions in regard to our own stability and our own continuance. Seeing that they abide we suppose that we cannot change nor cease to be.
Personally I cannot explain these sentiments of mine in any other way than to regard them as some sort of fetich worship.
And when I consider that those stones are very like other stones, that they have been brought from I know not where, by whom I care not, to be built into a wall by workmen who lived and died a century before I was even thought of, I realize the childishness of the illusion, which I indulge in spite of myself, that it can extend any sort of spiritual protection to me; I comprehend only too well what a frail and unstable base has that that symbolizes for me the permanency of life.
Those who have never had a permanent home, but who have from infancy been taken from place to place, living in lodgings meantime, may not be able to appreciate these sentiments.
But among those who have daily gathered about the same hearthstone, there are, I am sure, many who, without confessing it, are susceptible in varying degrees to impressions of this sort. And do not such people often, because of an old stone wall, a garden known and loved since childhood, an old terrace which has become in indestructible part of their memory, or an old tree that has not changed form within their lives, seek a warrant for their own hope of immortality?
And doubtless, alas! before their birth these objects lent the same delusive countenance to others, to those unknown now turned to dust and gone to nothingness, who may not even have been of their blood and race.
It was about the middle of the summer, after my severe illness, that I went to the Island for a long visit. I was taken there by my brother and my sister, the latter was like a second mother to me. After a sojourn of several weeks with our relatives at St. Pierre Oleron (my good Aunt Claire and her two old unmarried daughters) we went alone, we three, to a fishing village upon the Long-Beach, which at that time was entirely off the line of travel. The Long-Beach is that portion of the Island commanding a view of the ocean over which the west winds blow ceaselessly. Upon this coast, which extends without a curve straight and seemingly limitless, with the majestic sweep of the desert of Sahara, the waves roll and break with a mighty noise. Here there are to be seen many uneven waste spaces; it is a region of sand where stunted trees and dwarfish evergreen oaks shelter themselves behind the dunes. A curious kind of wild flower, a pink and fragrant carnation, blooms there profusely all summer long. Two or three villages, composed of humble little cottages, whitewashed like the bungalows of Algeria, break the loneliness of this region. These homes have planted about them such flowers as can best resist the sea-winds. Dark skinned fishermen and their families, a hardy honest people, still very primitive at the time of which I write, live here; even sea-bathers had not found their way to these shores.
In an old forgotten copy-book where my sister had written down (in a stilted manner) the impressions of that summer I find this description of our lodgings.
“We dwell in the centre of the village, in the square, at the Mayor's house.
“This house has two ells, which are spacious beyond measure.
“Its dazzling whitewashed surfaces sparkle in the sun, its window shutters are fastened with large iron hooks and painted a dark green as is the custom here. The flower bed that is planted in the form of a wreath all around the house grows vigorously in the sand. The day-lilies, one surpassing the other in beauty, open their yellow, pink and red blossoms, and the mignonette beds which at noon-time are fully abloom waft on the air an odor that is sweet as the scent of orange blossoms.
“Opposite us a little path hollowed out of the sand descends rapidly to the edge of the sea.”
My first really intimate acquaintance with the sea-wrack, crabs, sea-nettles, jelly-fish, and the thousand and one other small creatures that inhabit the ocean, dates from this visit to the Long-Beach.
And during this same summer I fell in love for the first time—my beloved was a little village girl. But here, so that the story may be related more accurately, I will allow my sister, through the medium of the old copy-book, to speak again—I merely copy:
“Dozens of the children (fishermen's boys and girls), tanned and brown and with little legs all bare, followed Pierre, or audaciously hurried before him, and from time to time turned and looked at him wonderingly with their beautiful dark eyes. At that time a little gentleman was a rare enough spectacle in that part of the country to be worth the trouble of running after.
“Every day Pierre, accompanied by this crowd, would descend to the beach by means of the little footpath scooped out of the sand. There he would run and pick up the shells that, upon that coast, are so exquisitely beautiful. They are yellow, pink, purple and many other bright colors, and they have the most delicate and varied forms. Pierre admired them greatly, and the little ones who always followed him would silently offer him hands full.
“Veronica was the most attentive of all. She was about his own age, perhaps a little younger, six or seven years of age. She had a sweet, dreamy little face, a rather pale complexion and lovely gray eyes. She was protected from the heat by a large white sunbonnet; a kichenote, as they call it in that part of the country, is a very old word, and means a large bonnet made of linen and cardboard, which projects over the face like the head-dress of a nun. Veronica would slip near Pierre, take possession of his hand, and keep it in hers. Thus they walked along contentedly without saying a word. They stopped from time to time to kiss each other. 'I wish to kiss you,' Veronica would say, and as she did so she embraced him tenderly with her little arms. Then after Pierre had allowed her the caress he would, in his turn, kiss her vehemently on her pretty, little, plump cheeks. . . .”
“Little Veronica used to run and seat herself upon our doorstep as soon as she was up; and there she remained like a faithful, loyal spaniel. As soon as Pierre woke he thought of her being there, and he would immediately get out of bed, have himself quickly washed, and stand quietly to have his blond curls combed out, and then run to find his little friend. They embraced each other and prattled of the events of the day before; sometimes Veronica, before coming to our house to wait for Pierre, made a trip to the seashore and gathered an apron full of the beautiful shells as a love offering to her sweetheart.
“One day, at about the end of August, after a long reverie, during which Pierre had perhaps weighed and considered the difficult question of the social difference between them, he said; 'Veronica you and I must get married some day; I will ask permission of my parents when the time comes.'”
Then my sister speaks of our departure:
“Upon the 15th of September it was necessary for us to leave the village. Pierre had made a collection of shells, sea-weeds, star-fish and pebbles; he was insatiable and wished to carry all of them away with him, and with Veronica's aid he packed a great many into his boxes.
“One morning a large carriage arrived at St. Pierre to take us away. The peace of the village was broken by the noise of the little bells and the cracking of the driver's whip. Pierre with the greatest care placed his own packets into the carriage and then we three quickly took our places. With eyes full of sadness Pierre gazed out of the carriage window towards the sandy path that led down to the beach—and at his little friend who stood there weeping.”
In conclusion I will copy word for word the reflection found at the end of the faded book which was written down by my sister during that same summer.
“Then, and not for the first time, I fell into an uneasy reverie that had to do with Pierre, and I asked myself: 'What will become of the little boy? And what will become of his little friend whose figure we could still see outlined at the now far distant end of the road. How much despair does that little heart feel; how much anguish at being thus abandoned?'”
“What will become of that boy?” Alas! what indeed! His whole life was to be similar to that summer of his childhood. To know the sorrow of many farewells; to desire to take with me a thousand trifles of no appreciable value, to hunger to have about me a world of beloved souvenirs,—but especially to say good bye to wild little creatures (loved perhaps just because they were ingenuous children of nature),—these things were to make up the sum of my life.
The two or three days' journey home (broken into by a visit to our old aunts) seemed to me very nearly endless. My impatience to see and embrace mamma kept me from sleeping. I had not seen her for almost two months! My sister was the only person in the world who, at that time, could have made such a long separation from my mamma endurable to me.
We reached the continent safely, and after a three-hours ride in the carriage that we found awaiting us at the boat-landing, we passed through the ramparts of our town. Ah! at last I saw my mother; I once more saw her dear face and sweet smile.—And now at this distant time I find that one of my clearest and most persistent memories is her beloved and still youthful face and her beautiful dark hair.
When we arrived at the house I ran to visit my little lake and its grottoes, and I hurried to the arbor that grew against the old wall. But my eyes had become so accustomed to the immensity of the sandy beach and the ocean that all of these things appeared shrunken, diminished, walled-in and mean. The leaves were turning yellow, and although it was still warm there was a promise of early autumn in the air. With fear and dread I thought of the dull and cold days which would soon be upon us; and when, with a heavy heart, I began to unpack my boxes of sea-weed and shells, I was overcome with grief because I was not still upon the Island. I felt disquieted too about Veronica who would have to be there without me during the winter, and suddenly my eyes overflowed with tears at the thought that I might never again hold her dear little sun-burned hands in mine.
The time now arrived for me to begin regular lessons and to write exercises in copy-books, which I invariably smeared with ink—ah! what gloom and dreariness suddenly came into my life.
I remember that I performed my tasks spiritlessly and sulkily, and that my lessons bored me inexpressibly. And since I wish to be very sincere, it is necessary for me to add that my teachers also were well-nigh intolerable to me.
Alas! well do I remember the one who first taught me Latin (rosa, the rose; cornu, the horn; tonitru, the thunder). This tutor was very old and bent, and as sad of face as a rainy November day. He is dead now, the poor old fellow—sweet peace to his soul! He was exactly like that “Mr. Ratin” hit off in caricature so neatly by Topffer; he had all the marks, even to the wart with the three hairs, and fine wrinkles beyond number at the end of his old nose; to me his face was the personification of all that was hideous and disgusting.
He arrived every day precisely at noon; and a chill would pass through me when I heard his knock which I would have recognized among a thousand.
Always after his departure, I attempted to purify that part of my table where his elbow had rested by rubbing it hard with the napkin which I had taken clandestinely from the linen-closet. And the repulsion extended itself to the very books, already unattractive enough to me, which he touched; I even tore certain leaves out of them because I suspected that he had handled them a great deal.
My books were always full of ink blots, always stained and covered with smeared sketches and pictures, which one draws idly when his attention wanders from his task. I who was usually so careful and proper a child had such a detestation for the books which I was obliged to learn from, that I abused them in the commonest fashion; altogether I was a miserable pupil. I found—and this is the astonishing part—that all my scruples of conscience deserted me when my teacher questioned me in regard to the time I had spent upon my lessons (I usually studied them in a mad hurry at the last moment); my aversion for study was the first thing that caused me to temporize with my conscience.
In spite, however, of a pricking conscience, I still continued to give only a passing glance at my lessons at the very last moment. But generally “Mr. Ratin” would write “good” or “very good” upon the paper which it was my duty each evening to show to my father.
I believe that if he, or the other professors who succeeded him, could have suspected the truth, could have guessed that out of their presence my mind did not dwell for more than five minutes a day upon what they had taught me, their honest heads would have split with indignation.
During the course of the winter which followed my visit to the Long-Beach a great change took place in our family—my brother departed for his first campaign.
He was, as I have said, about fourteen years older than I. I had had very little time to become acquainted with him, to attach myself to him, for his preparation for his vocation made it necessary for him to be away from home a great deal. I scarcely ever went into his room where, scattered upon the table, there was an appalling number of large books. This room was pervaded with the strong odor of tobacco; and I dared not go near it for fear that I would meet his comrades, young officers, or students like himself. I had heard, also, that he was not always well-behaved, that sometimes he did not come in until very late at night, and that often my father had found it necessary to give him a serious talking to; secretly I greatly disapproved of his conduct.
But his approaching departure strengthened my affection, and caused me extreme sorrow.
He was going to Polynesia, to Tahiti, almost to the end of the world, and he expected to be away four years. To me that seemed an almost endless absence, for it represented half of my own age.
I watched, with the greatest interest, the preparations that he made for his voyage. The iron-bound trunks were packed with care. He wrapped the gilt-embroidered uniform and his sword in a quantity of tissue paper, and put them away with the same care one bestows upon a mummy when it is relaid in its metal case. All of these things augmented the impression that I had of the distance and dangers of the long voyage about to be undertaken by my brother.
A sort of melancholy rested upon every one in the house, which became deeper and more and more noticeable as the day for the separation drew near. At our meals we were more silent; advice from my father and assurances from my brother was the substance of most of the conversations, and I listened meditatively without saying a word.
The day before my brother left he confided to my care—and I was greatly honored to have him do so—the many fragile little things that he had upon his mantel-piece; these he bade me guard faithfully until his return.
He then made me a present of a handsome gilt edged, illustrated book entitled, “A Voyage in Polynesia.” It was the only book that in my early childhood I had an affection for, and I constantly turned its pages with eager pleasure. In the front of it there was an engraving of a very pretty dark woman who, crowned with reeds, was sitting gracefully under a palm tree. Under this picture was printed: “Portrait of her Majesty, Pomare IV., Queen of Tahiti.” Further over in the book there was a picture of two beautiful maidens, with naked shoulders and crowned heads, standing at the edge of the sea, and this was entitled: “Two Young Tahitian Girls upon the Beach.”
Upon the day of my brother's departure, at the last hour, the preparations being over, and the large trunks closed and locked, we gathered in the parlor as solemnly as if we had come together for a funeral. A chapter of the Bible was read and then we had family prayers. . . . Four years! and during that time the width of the earth between us and our loved one!
I recall particularly my mother's face during the farewell scene; she was seated in an arm chair beside my brother. After the prayer she had upon her face an infinitely sweet, but wistful smile, and an expression of submissive trust; but suddenly an unexpected change came over her features, and in spite of her efforts at self-control her tears flowed. I had never before seen my mother weep, and it caused me the greatest anguish.
The first few days after his departure I had a feeling of sadness, and I missed him greatly; often and often I went into his room, and the little treasures which he had confided to my care were as sacred as holy relics.
Upon a map of the world I had my parents point out to me the route of his journey, a journey which would take about five months. To me his return belonged to an inconceivable and unreal future; and, most strange of all, what spoiled for me the pleasure of his home-coming, was that I at that time would be twelve or thirteen years of age—almost a big boy in fact.
Unlike most other children,—especially unlike those of to-day—who are eager to become men and women as speedily as possible, I had a terror of growing up, which became more and more accentuated as I grew older. I argued about it to myself, and I wrote about it, and when any one asked me why I had such a feeling I answered, since I could not think of a better reason: “It seems to me that it will be very wearisome to be a man.” I believe that it is an extremely singular state of mind, an altogether unique one perhaps, this shrinking away from life at its very beginning; I was not able to see a horizon before me: I could not picture my future to myself as so many can; before me there was nothing but impenetrable darkness, a great leaden curtain shut off my view.
“Cakes, cakes, my good hot cakes!” Thus, in a plaintive voice, sang the old woman peddler who regularly, upon winter evenings, during the first ten or twelve years of my life, passed under our window.—When I think of those bygone days I hear again her insistent refrain.
It is with the memory of Sundays that the song of the “good hot cakes” is most closely associated; for upon that evening, having no duties to perform in the way of lessons, I sat with my parents in the parlor upon the ground floor which overlooked the street; therefore, when almost upon the stroke of nine, the poor old woman passed along the sidewalk, and her sonorous chant broke into the stillness of the frosty night I was near enough to hear her distinctly.
She presaged the coming of cold weather as swallows announce the advent of the spring. After a succession of cool autumnal days, the first time we heard her song we would say: “Well, we may conclude that winter is really here.”
This parlor where we sat together seemed a very immense room to me. It was simply and tastefully furnished and arranged: the walls and the woodwork were brown, decorated with strips of gold: the furniture, dating from the time of Louis Philippe, was upholstered in red velvet; the family portraits were in severe black and gold frames; in the centre of the table, in the place of honor, there was a large Bible that had been printed in the sixteenth century. This was a precious heirloom that had come down to us from our Huguenot ancestors who had, at that time, been persecuted for their faith. We had baskets and vases of flowers disposed about the room, a custom which then was not so usual as it is now.
It was always a delicious moment for me when we left the dining-room and went into the parlor, for the latter room had an air of great peace and comfort; and when all the family were seated there in a circle, mother, grandmother and aunts, I began to skip about noisily in their midst from very joy at being surrounded by so many loved ones; and I waited impatiently for them to begin the little games which they were in the habit of playing with me early in the evening. Our neighbors, the D——'s, came to see us every Sunday; it was a time-honored custom in our two families, between whom there existed a friendship that had its inception in the country generations before our time; it was a friendship which had been handed down to us as a precious heritage. At about eight o'clock, when I recognized their ring, I jumped for joy, and I could not restrain myself from running to the street door to meet them, for Lucette, my dear friend, always came with her parents.
Alas! how sad is my reverie when I think of the beloved and venerated forms of those who surrounded me upon those happy Sunday evenings; the majority of them have passed away, and their faces, when I seek to recall them, are dim and misty—some are altogether lost from memory.
Then friends and relatives would begin to play, for the purpose of giving me pleasure, the little games of which I was so fond; they played “Marriage,” “My Lady's Toilet,” “The Horned Knight,” and “The Lovely Shepherdess.” Everybody took part in them, even the old people, and my grand aunt Bertha, the eldest of all, was irresistibly droll.
The refrain became louder rapidly, for the singer trotted along with short, quick steps, and very soon she was under our window, where she kept repeating her song in a shrill, cracked voice.
When they would allow me to do so, it was my greatest pleasure to run to the door, followed by an indulgent aunt, not so much for the purpose of buying the cakes, however, for they were coarse and unpalatable, as to stop the old woman and talk with her.
The poor old peddler would approach with a courtesy, proud of being called, and standing with one foot upon the threshold she would present her basket for our inspection. Her neat dress was set off by the white linen sleeves that she always wore. While she uncovered her basket I would look longingly, like a caged wild-bird, far down the cold and deserted streets.
I liked to breathe in great draughts of the icy air, to look hastily into the black night lying beyond the door, and then to run back into the warm and comfortable parlor,—meantime, the monotonous refrain grew fainter and fainter as it died away into the mean streets that lay close to the ramparts and the harbor. The old woman's route was always the same, and my thoughts followed her with a singular interest as long as the song continued.
I felt a great pity for the poor old woman still wandering about in the cold night, while we were snug and warm at home; but mingled with that feeling there was another sentiment so confused and vague that I give it too much importance, even though I touch upon it never so lightly. It was this: I had a sort of restless curiosity to see those squalid streets through which the old peddler went so bravely, and to which I had never been taken. These streets, that I saw from the distance, were deserted in the day time, but there in the evening, from time immemorial, sailors made merry; sometimes the sound of their singing was so loud that we could hear it as we sat in our parlor.
What could be going on there? What was the nature of that fun, the echo of whose din we heard so distinctly? How did they amuse themselves, these sailors, who had but newly come over the sea from distant countries where the sun was always hot? What life was careless and simple and free as theirs!
My emotions lose their force when I endeavor to interpret them, and my words seem very inept. But I know that seeds of trouble, and seeds of hope (to develop how I could not guess) were at about this time planted in my little being. When, with my cakes in my hand, I re-entered the parlor where the family sat talking together quietly, I felt for a quick, almost inappreciable, moment suffocated and imprisoned.
At half-past nine, because of me seldom later, tea was served, and with it we had thin slices of bread, spread with the most delicious butter, and cut with the care one gives to very few things in these days.
Then at about eleven o'clock, after a reading from the Bible and a prayer, we retired.
As I lay in my little white bed I was always more restless Sunday nights than at any other time. Immediately ahead of me there was the prospect of Mr. Ratin whom morning would surely bring, and he was always a most painful sight to me after a respite; also I was full of regret because Sunday was over, always over so quickly!—and I felt a great weariness when I thought of the many lessons it would be necessary for me to prepare before Sunday came again. Sometimes, as I lay there, I would hear the songs the sailors sung as they passed in the distant lands and noble ships; and a sort of dull and indefinite longing took possession of me and I felt as if I would like to be out of doors myself in search of pleasurable and exciting adventure. I hungered to be in the bracing wintry night air, or in one of those foreign lands where the sun beats down with tropical warmth; I yearned to be out and singing like them, as loud as possible, just for the joy of being alive.