ITHE KINGDOM
“WHERE are you going?”
“Oh, up to the house.”
Put this question to little girls and boys that you see along the country roads, on their way from school or coming in from the fields, and you will get this answer.
Their bright eyes glisten like grass after a shower; their speech, unless they are timid, shoots straight out, like plants that claim all space to grow in undisturbed.
“Where are you going?”
They do not answer “home”; nor do they even say “to our house.” They say “the house.” It may be a wretched, tumble-down shed: all the same it is the house, the only house in all the world. Some day there will be others,—perhaps. But that is not so certain, after all.
Even young men and women, and quite grown persons, married folk, if you please, use the same expression.At the housethey used to do this,at the housethere was that. One might suppose theywere speaking of their present house. Not at all; they are speaking of the house of their childhood, the house where their father and mother lived, and which they have not been able to keep, or the customs of which they have changed—it’s all one—but which in their memory is always the same. You quite understand that there cannot be two.
I was a school-boy then; oh, just a little primary school child, perhaps seven or eight years old,—seven or eight I think. I always said “the house” just as people sayla patriewhen they mean France. Still, I knew very well that there were people who called it by other names, names which sound grander to a child. The baby’s Italian nurse used to call itil palazzo, rounding her mouth for the seconda, and letting the last syllable die gently away in a lingering whisper. The farmer who brought the rent, or more probably an instalment of it, or even a fowl of some sort, to encourage the master to have patience, would saythe château, with several circumflex accents. A lady who came from Paris to visit us—you would know she was from Paris by the lorgnette which she carried—had given it the dignified titleyour mansion. And during the crisis of which I shall have presently to tell, any one might read on the humiliating bill that was posted on our front gate the wordsVilla for sale. Villa, mansion, château, palace, how colourless are all these majesticwords, notwithstanding their fine sound! What was the use of tangling up the truth in words? “The house” is quite enough. “The house” tells the whole story.
It is still there: it has an ancient habit of being there. You would have no trouble in finding it—the whole country knows the Rambert house, because our family has always lived in it. It has been carefully repaired—too carefully, indeed—from garret to cellar, furbished and decorated, repainted and polished outside and in. Of course it will not do to let houses go on forever wearing themselves out, and a decaying homestead has poetic charm only to passing travellers. Every-day life has its indispensabilities. But nobody cares that one’s house should be new any more than that one’s parents should be young. If they are young they are less entirely ours. They feel a right to an existence of their own, whereas later, our life is their life, and that is all that we ask of them, for we are not exacting.
Before the house was restored I was showing it to a lady, a lady from Paris like her of the lorgnette. It is probable, quite likely, certain, indeed, that I had previously sung its praises in no modest tones. My description doubtless lacked neither the farmer’s circumflex accents nor the lingering susurration of the Italian nurse. She may have expected to see another Versailles, or at the very least another Chantilly. So when, all alive with interest, duly instructed, and heranticipation keyed up to pitch, she was introduced to the incomparable edifice, she had the effrontery to exclaim in a tone of surprise, “Is this it?”
I felt her disappointment. With the utmost courtesy I escorted her to her carriage—even when boiling over with rage one is polite to a woman—but I have never seen her since that day: I should not be able to endure the sight of her. Perfect understanding with a stranger concerning the places and things of one’s childhood is simply impossible. It is a case of different dimensions. They are to be pitied, for their eyes are incapable of seeing. They do not seethe house, they see only a house. How then are they to understand?
You come upon an iron gateway between two square granite columns;—the gate freshly painted and in three sections, those on either side bolted to the ground, permitting the use of only that in the centre. The three are opened only on grand occasions, for carriages and limousines. In old times they were opened for hay waggons. In old times, for that matter, you had only to push a little and you could go in by any gate you pleased, the bolts being out of commission. All sorts of unbidden folk used to come into the court, and to me their intrusions were highly disagreeable. Children are strongly conservative in their sense of proprietorship.
“What difference does it make?” grandfather would say.
Grandfather detested enclosures of any sort.
The stone columns used to be covered with moss, but now they are draped with climbing plants. The trees have been trimmed of the too-exuberant branches that used to seem to bend in blessing above the roof, or to tap upon the window panes. One never realises the vigour of a tree; grant it a few square yards and it soon overshadows them, and gradually draws nearer and nearer, like a friend who has the right of entrance. Now that our trees have been trimmed—for the time being—the sunlight caresses the walls of the old house, and this is better, in the matter of hygiene. Humidity is unwholesome, especially in autumn. But here is a puzzle; in my time, I mean in the time when I was young, there was a sun-dial carved in high relief upon the wall. Above it was a tarnished and half-effaced inscription, the secret of which I refused to penetrate:ME LUX, VOS UMBBA. Father had translated it for me and I made haste to forget it that I might still feel the thrill of the mysterious syllables. Above it was the iron finger whose slender shadow marked the hour all day long, and encircling it were the names of unknown cities, London, Boston, Pekin, and the rest, intended to show the differences in time the whole world round, as if the whole world were merely a dependance of the house, which dictated the laws of time to them all. But a linden tree, in an inadvertent moment, had rendered useless all this labour of light. The linden had indeed been pruned, but by an unlucky mischance, when the front of the house wasrestored the entire dial had been covered with a coat of whitewash. Oh, ill-starred restoration! But am not I responsible, for was it not I who ordered it? Grown people are capable of just such profanities. They do it without meaning any harm. No doubt I had said, carelessly, “That poor dial is of no use.” (The trees had not been trimmed then.) It is a mistake to let fall a thought; some one is sure to pick it up. A mason who had chanced to hear me actually thought to give me pleasure with his whitewash brush, and when I tried to restrain his zeal it was too late.
As a matter of fact, all these changes which I force myself to set down hardly affect me. Don’t think me stoical to that degree. I simply do not see the house as it is. It might be besmeared from cornice to foundation and I should not notice it. I always see it as it was in my time—the time, of course you understand, when I was little. I have it thus before my eyes for all the rest of my life.
The nice old cracks that used to look, not like wrinkles but like smiles, have all been closed up. A wing has been added for the convenience of the domestic economy; and as the tiles were falling off the roof they have been replaced by slates. I have no quarrel with slates. There are some of an almost lilac grey, like the throat of a turtle-dove, that are very prisms for reflecting the light. But slate roofs are flat and monotonous, uniform and without character, whiletiles, rounded, irregular, humped, seem actually to stir, to move, to stretch themselves like the good old turtles in the garden, that sigh for fair weather, and hump their backs in protest against wind and rain. The colour of tiles shades from red to black, passing gradually or abruptly through all the diminishing tones between. And those who have eyes to see can guess at the age of the house entirely from the degree of their incrustation.
However, its age is accurately set down on the blackened tablet in the great chimney which is the glory of the kitchen. As soon as I rightly knew my letters and figures, father had set me to read the date, and I quite understood that he took pride in it, whereas grandfather sneered at the little ceremony, murmuring in the background, below his voice by way of not attracting too much attention, but quite distinctly enough for me to hear, “Do leave the child in peace!”
Was it 1610 or 1670? No one could be quite certain, short of calling together all our local academies. The stroke at the left of the upright was too horizontal for a 1 and not sufficiently so for a 7.
“It’s not of the slightest importance,” said grandfather, to whom I referred the matter.
However, I no longer doubted that it was 1610, when my history book informed me that this was the year of the assassination of Henry IV. My imagination demanded the association of a historic event with thebuilding of our house. “The King left the Louvre in a coach. He occupied the back seat, the panels of which were open. The stopping of two carts at the entrance of the rue de la Ferronnerie, which was extremely narrow, forced the royal equipage to halt. At that very moment a man of thirty-two, of a sinister countenance, tall and very corpulent, red bearded and black haired, François Ravaillac, stepped with one foot upon the curb, the other upon the spoke of the wheel, and stabbed the King with two blows of a dagger, the second of which severed the pulmonary vein. Henri cried, ‘I am wounded,’ and almost instantly expired.” I can recall word for word the account in the history-book which I have not been able to find. No doubt the terrible picture of the murder which it gave aids my memory. And I was able to appreciate the importance of the dates by the significant detail that the rascal’s face infallibly proved that he was thirty-two years old—thirty-two, and not thirty-one or thirty-three. The rapidity of the drama in no wise prevented the accurate recognition of this detail. And when the historian added that the King was hastily carried back to the Louvre, bleeding from Ravaillac’s poniard, I pictured to myself the procession as at the door of the house. The house was our Louvre.
The kitchen was probably, was surely, the finest, largest, most comfortable, most honourable room in the house; banquets and balls might have been given in it. Such had been the custom in old times,and I should be the last to find fault with it. Though I have since dared to transform that kitchen into a hall paved with black and white marble, the walls handsomely done in panels of hard wood, and well lighted by a glass bay which occupies the entire side toward the sunset, I still find myself looking about me for stew-pans and frying-pans, and above all for the spit that used to turn there. I still smell the odours of ragouts and roasts, and whenever I see my guests entering the room I have an impulse to cry out upon the stupidity of the servants, exclaiming, “What possesses you to bring them in here!”
Here Mariette the cook held sway. Her power was absolute. Before her despotism people and furniture alike trembled. Happily, the wide spaces afforded room to escape her vigilant eye. There were shadowed corners where one could manage to keep out of sight, especially under the vast chimney mantel. The chimney had been put upon the retired list like an aged servant. I used not to know why; but I divine that it was from reasons of economy, for it was capable of consuming whole forests. Under its shelter one could make oneself quite comfortable on the old stone fire-dogs, that were cemented into their place. Bending back the head, one could see daylight at the top. In autumn, when night comes early, I used to look up to watch for a star. One night even, reluctantly crossing the kitchen, then dark and deserted, I wasterrified by a square of light lying white upon the hearth-stone like an unfolded sheet. Was it the cast-off garment of a ghost? Perhaps they throw them off that way, at the moment of vanishing, leaving them as an incontrovertible witness to their visit. The moon was playing upon the roof.
The more coming and going there was, the better Mariette was pleased. Her tongue itched in solitude. As a general thing the postman, the farmer, the men who worked in the garden made their appearance there at regular intervals. Each and all were served with a glass of red wine, which they drank with unfailing observance of the rites. They lifted the elbow and said, “To your health,” after which it was permitted to drain the glass; and if a second were desired, even without the slightest interval, the same formula must be observed. Never a one of them balked at its repetition. I have sometimes drunk in their company, no doubt from the same glass.
Folk would come also from the mountain villages to get father when a case was serious. Father, who was a doctor, never demurred at going with them. I can still hear his words of greeting, at once compassionate and resolute, when he crossed Mariette’s empire and found it occupied.
“What is wrong now, friend?”
Mariette would scan all new-comers with a wary yet perspicacious eye, which unmasked frauds and congealed the blood in the veins of thoseunlucky wights whose arrival coincided with the sacred hour of a meal. I have been present at many an outpouring of peasant woes. They came out little by little, with a certain reticence of grief, as if illness were a disgraceful thing. I did not understand this reserve; indeed, it seemed to me simply slowness of speech.
The high-tide of the year, to the cook, was October, the vintage season. What comings and goings through the kitchen of vintagers at work in the wine-press! How important that their strength should be kept up by large reinforcements of boiled beef and potatoes, and how warm and savoury the steam that filled the kitchen from the great kettles! We children used to make the most of the confusion to settle ourselves upon the fire-dogs, our pockets full of nuts which the wind had scattered over the farm lane, or which we had ourselves surreptitiously knocked off with switches. A bit of flint served to crack them upon the hearth-stone. If they were still in their green husk a juice would squirt out, staining our hands and clothes with a pigment of which not the best soap could obliterate the tell-tale tokens. But the kernels, white as a fowl well dressed for a doll’s dinner, would crunch most deliciously between our teeth. Or we would stealthily pop our chestnuts on a corner of the stove, revelling in the warmth after coming in, chilled through, from kicking dead leaves before us in the face of the autumn winds; for in my country the windsare harsh and rude.
Many a time, too, have I curiously watched Mariette’s movements as she killed a fowl. Her dexterity and her indifference were alike extreme. Like the most experienced headsman she would decapitate ducks that continued to run around, headless, to my great admiration. One day she asked me to hold a reluctant victim during the operation. I indignantly refused my co-operation, whereupon she exclaimed, with the contempt which she often affected:
“Ho! how squeamish we are! You are ready enough to eat them!”
I am not going to conduct you through the whole house. It would take too long, for there are two stories above the ground floor, the second being much less ancient than the first, and above that a garret and the tower. The tower, which you reach by a winding stair, has four windows commanding the four quarters of the horizon. This diversified view, too extensive for my taste, never interested me much. I suppose that children care little for things that extend indefinitely, things that do nothing, clouds, vague landscapes. On stormy days the wind made an infernal hubbub around the tower; one might have fancied it a living creature, ill-mannered and strong, heaping insults upon the walls before throwing them down. The staircase was none too light; at nightfall it was easy to get frightened there, and as the steps were very narrow on the side of the supporting pillar, you were likely toget a finecarabosseif you hurried.Carabossewas a word which Aunt Deen had invented for severe falls occasioned by hurrying; falls from which one picked oneself up lame, bruised and swollen; the word no doubt came from the wicked fairy Carabosse.
As for the garret, not one of us would have gone there without company. A single dormer window grudgingly admitted an insufficient light, just enough to give to the heaps of wood, faggots and cast-off things of all sorts that gradually accumulated there to wear out a useless existence, the appearance of instruments of torture or fearsome personages. Moreover, it was the battle ground of hosts of rats. From the rooms below one might have supposed they were amusing themselves with regularly organised obstacle races. Once in a while the cat was carried up there—a superb, lazy Angora, fond of good eating and little disposed to warfare. He was no doubt afraid of spoiling his fine coat, and wouldmeowin terror until Aunt Deen, whose special care he was, released him from military duty, at no long delay.
The drawing room, the shades of which were generally drawn and which was only opened on ceremonial occasions or on reception days, was forbidden ground to us; and likewise my father’s study, crowded with books, apparatus and vials. We ventured into it only for hasty explorations, but I used to see all sorts of forlorn creatures going in there, who usually came out looking much happier. By way ofcompensation, the dining room was given over to us. It was the scene of many a tumult, and the chairs had more than once to be re-seated and their backs strengthened. Into mother’s room, which was very large, we used to rush at all times. It was so centrally situated that every sound in the house reached it, and from it our mother quietly, and without attracting attention, watched over her whole domain; nothing went on in it that she did not know at once. In our eagerness for conquest we even took possession of the music room, a small octagon parlour, of marvellous acoustic properties, which opened upon a balcony looking southward. The family usually spent the summer evenings in this room, on account of the balcony.
I have still to tell of the garden. But if I describe it as it seems to me, you will think, like the lady from Paris, that it is one of those vast domains that surround historic châteaux. I have never yet been able to understand, as I walk in it now, how it could once have seemed so large to me; but as soon as I am no longer there it regains its true importance in my memory. Perhaps it is because in those days it was so ill kept that one easily gained the impression of being lost in it. With the exception of the kitchen-garden, the beds of which were straight and orderly, every part of it was at haphazard. In the orchard, where pears and peaches that our insinuating fingers were forever testing never succeeded in ripening before they were picked,the grass grew thick and tall, as tall as me, upon my word! Always, in the orchard, I used to think of the virgin forests that the Children of Captain Grant travelled through. A rose garden, thechef d’œuvreof a flower-loving ancestor, bloomed in a corner whenever it felt so disposed, and with no aid either from pruning shears or watering pot. Mother used to work in it in her moments of rare leisure, but it really needed an expert in the art. The alleys were overgrown with weeds—one had to search to find a path. On the other hand, other walks that had never been laid out appeared in the very midst of the grass plots. And just under mother’s windows there was a fountain; you didn’t hear it in the daytime, you were so used to it, but in the night, when all was still, its monotonous wail filled all the silence and made me sad, I did not know why.
I have forgotten to mention the vines that were trained against the farm buildings, and which interested us only when we could relieve them of their grapes. And now at last I come to the loveliest tangle imaginable of bushes, brambles, nettles, and all sorts of wild plants, that was our own special domain. There we were masters and sovereign lords. There was nothing more before you reached the surrounding wall except a chestnut grove, which was simply an extension of our own empire. When I say chestnut grove, I mean four or five chestnut trees. But one alone could cast a wide shade. There was one whose roots hadoverthrown a section of the wall. By this open breach, which I never approached without a sense of discomfort, I used to imagine that robbers might come in.
To be sure, I was armed. Father had told us the stories of the Iliad and the Odyssey, the story of Roland and various other tales of adventure, from the hearing of which I would sally forth all on fire, impetuous and heroic. By turns I would be the furious Roland or the magnanimous Hector. With my wooden sword I would give mortal combat to Greeks or Saracens, impersonated by certain shrubs, but of which the peaceable cabbages and unoffending beets sometimes bore the brunt as I cut right and left among them.
My arms were provided by one of the queer labourers we used to employ in the garden or about the vines. There were three of them, each working by himself in his corner, each with his special qualifications but with undefined duties, though care was taken to keep them apart. They detested one another. Where had they been picked up? Their selection was no doubt due to grandfather’s inveterate indifference, for he let every one, including the property, go his own way. Or perhaps it was due to mother’s tender heart, for she was easily capable of having fished up such pitiful wrecks of humanity as these.
The first and earliest in my memory, the one who was my armourer into the bargain, went by the name of Tem Bossette. Both appellationswere nicknames, I suppose, and their origin is not hard to discover.Temmust have been derived from Anthelmus, who is a saint venerated in our province. As for the nickname Bossette, I long supposed it to be an indelicate allusion to the curve of his back, due to long leaning over the spade. But I have found an etymology that better suits his character, especially his laziness, and I humbly submit it to messieurs the philologers, who will be able, according to their custom, to consecrate to it several folio volumes. In our country the wordbossehas more than one meaning; it especially designates the cask in which the vintage is deposited for convenient removal from the vineyard, and I can still see the bewilderment stamped upon the countenance of a friend to whom I was doing the honours of my native town, on reading a poster, a simple little poster, containing the wordsFor sale, an oval bosse. “Happy region,” he commented, “where hunchbacks can carry their gibbosities to market.” He thought himself very clever when he added, “But do they find purchasers?” I explained to him his mistake. Now Tem was a notable drunkard. Our cellar knew that better than any one.Bossette, little wine cask; he also could contain a grape harvest; and even, toward the close of his life, the diminutive might have been suppressed.
He used to make swords for me out of the stakes on which the vines were tied. In recompense I used to bring him extra bottles of wine, which Iprocured from Aunt Deen, who had special charge of the cellar, urging upon her the splendour of my armament. From time to time there arose a complaint that the vine trellises were defective and the untrained branches trailing on the ground, absorbing dampness. But grandfather, good naturedly indifferent, never blamed any one, and please reckon up how many stakes were necessary to my complete equipment. I needed them for my panoplies, I needed them for my stables. The number of my horses bore witness to my magnificence. With a stick between my legs I acquired an astonishing velocity, and for each battle I must needs change horses.
Tem Bossette would have been tall if he had stood up straight, but as to his stoutness there was no question, and his round head greatly resembled a pumpkin. “Big head, little wit,” Mimi Pachoux used to say of him, pursing up his lips. Mimi Pachoux was gardener, orchard man, lamp man, smoke doctor, locksmith, cabinet maker, mender of clocks and china, floor-waxer, wood-sawyer, errand man and I know not what more. Oh, yes, in the winter he used to be bearer of the dead. Did any difficulty arise, was any help needed? “Call Mimi!” grandfather would say. And they would call Mimi—a matter of several hours, for no one ever knew where he was, so that when he at last arrived the work wouldbe done; but every one gave him the credit of it.
“That Mimi, he no sooner comes than everything goes well!”
Picture to yourself a little scrap of a man, thin, clean, prompt, lively and invisible into the bargain. Invisible, that is what I mean, unless you would prefer to grant him the gift of ubiquity. Every morning he would begin a half dozen days’ works; here at six o’clock, and perhaps earlier—oh, that Mimi! What zeal!—At five past six at another job, and before the quarter hour at a third, loudly announcing himself at the first, running to the second, flying to the third, slipping in here, stealing out secretly, running back furtively, replying here, explaining there, protesting elsewhere, appearing, disappearing, reappearing, beginning in haste, going on in a hurry, finishing nothing, and at evening getting paid in three places at once. Grandfather used to say that several persons among his acquaintance could see their double. Father would observe that it was a well known malady, requiring nothing but drink for its production. I tried it once, but I saw everything shifting about. It was Tem Bossette who used to drink, but our Mimi Pachoux could see his triple.
As to the third member of our force, it was essential never to lose sight of him for a minute, because of his fixed determination to hang himself. He had made several attempts that had ended in failure. Weused to watch him in relays. Mariette would refuse him the slightest bit of cord, however pressing his need of it, and he was carefully assigned to work where the uncovered spaces were largest. In early days he used to be called Dante, but his name was really Beatrix. His nickname was given him by the keeper of our departmental archives, a man of wit. His face was long and woe-begone, and he was so possessed with the desire to hie him to the lower regions that it was continually necessary to cut his rope. By degrees he came to be called Le Pendu, or the Hanged, and was known by no other name. Very few were willing to employ him because of the police force requisite to ward off his catastrophes. Mother was his providence. The heavy jobs were intrusted to him, but he generally gave them over to Aunt Deen, who was strong, active, and capable of moving even the heavy casks, while he looked on with admiration, open-mouthed and with swinging arms. His mouth contained only two teeth, which by marvellous good luck were precisely one above the other, so that when one met the other you might suppose that it was one tooth uniting the two jaws.
You can understand to what a degree our garden was neglected. Should I have loved it more, blooming with flowers and fruits, than in this lamentable condition, in which it seemed to me immense and measureless and mysterious?
Dear old garden, with your crazy weeds, always a little too damp andmuch too shady because of branches left to their own will, where I have played so much and invented so many games, where I have known the glory of combat, the wonders of exploration, the pride of conquest, the intoxication of freedom; not to mention the friendship of trees and the pleasantness of fruit gathered in secret! Who would recognise you to-day? Raked, reduced to order, pruned, watered, your alleys sanded, your turf cut close around the flower urns, never flatter yourself that you can dazzle me with your beauty!
When I walk in my garden I still go as I please, trampling down the borders, treading underfoot the grass plots, endangering the flowers, until the new gardener—who by himself alone only too ably replaces Tem Bossette, Mimi Pachoux, and the Hanged—cries out in a voice of consternation:
“Do take care, sir!”
I must excuse him. He does not know that I am walking in my garden of long ago.
To complete this portrait of the house, there still is lacking—oh, almost nothing! Almost nothing yet almost everything, two things indeed, a shadow and a footstep.
The footstep was my father’s; no one ever mistook it. Rapid, regular, resonant, it was his and no other’s. Once it was heard on the threshold a magic change passed over everything. Tem Bossette plied his spade with unsuspected vigour, Mimi Pachoux, till then invisible, popped uplike an imp out of a bottle. The Hanged tackled the heaviest casks, Mariette stirred her fire, all of us children came to order, and grandfather—I don’t know why—went out. Was there a difficulty to solve, a trouble to bear, a danger to fear? Let some one say, “Here he is,” and it was all over, every anxiety dissipated, every one taking a long breath as after a victory. Aunt Deen especially had a way of saying, “Here he is,” which would have put to flight the most daring aggressor. It was as much as to say, “Just wait! You will see what will happen. It won’t take long: Another minute and justice will be done!” Once aware of his presence, we felt in ourselves an invincible strength, a sense of security, of protection, of an armed peace, and also a sense of being under command. Each had his own part. But grandfather loved neither to command nor to be commanded.
And the shadow—it was my mother’s, there behind the half closed window blind, whenever all the family was not gathered around her. She is waiting for father, or for our return from school. Some one is absent, and she is anxious. Or the weather is threatening—she is looking at the sky? wondering whether to light the blessed candle.
A different sort of peace emanates from her, a peace—how shall I describe it?—that reaches beyond the things of life, that enters into one and calms the nerves and heart, the peace of love and prayer. Thatshadow, which I used to look for every time I came in, that I look for now, though well enough I know that it is not there, that it is elsewhere—that shadow was the soul of the house, showing through it as thought shows in a face.
Thus were we guarded.
Beyond the house was the town, on a lower level, as was fitting, and still beyond a great lake and the mountains, and more distant still, the rest of the world. But all these were simply dependencies of The House.