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diff --git a/old/fchld10.txt b/old/fchld10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ba3ba8e --- /dev/null +++ b/old/fchld10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6651 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Story of a Child, by Pierre Loti +(#9 in our series by Pierre Loti) + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing +this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. + +This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project +Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: The Story of a Child + +Author: Pierre Loti + +Release Date: October, 2004 [EBook #6664] +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +[This file was first posted on January 10, 2003] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, THE STORY OF A CHILD *** + + + + +Etext prepared by Dagny, dagnypg@yahoo.com and John Bickers, +jbickers@ihug.co.nz + + + +THE STORY OF A CHILD + +By Pierre Loti + + + + + THE STORY OF A CHILD + + BY + + PIERRE LOTI + + Translated by Caroline F. Smith + + + + + PREFACE + + + +There is to-day a widely spread new interest in child life, a desire +to get nearer to children and understand them. To be sure child study +is not new; every wise parent and every sympathetic teacher has ever +been a student of children; but there is now an effort to do more +consciously and systematically what has always been done in some way. + +In the few years since this modern movement began much has been +accomplished, yet there is among many thoughtful people a strong +reaction from the hopes awakened by the enthusiastic heralding of the +newer aspects of psychology. It had been supposed that our science +would soon revolutionize education; indeed, taking the wish for the +fact, we began to talk about the new and the old education (both +mythical) and boast of our millennium. I would not underrate the real +progress, the expansion of educational activities, the enormous gains +made in many ways; but the millennium! The same old errors meet us in +new forms, the old problems are yet unsolved, the waste is so vast +that we sometimes feel thankful that we cannot do as much as we would, +and that Nature protects children from our worst mistakes. + +What is the source of this disappointment? Is it not that education, +like all other aspects of life, can never be reduced to mere science? +We need science, it must be increasingly the basis of all life; but +exact science develops very slowly, and meantime we must live. +Doubtless the time will come when our study of mind will have advanced +so far that we can lay down certain great principles as tested laws, +and thus clarify many questions. Even then the solution of the problem +will not be in the enunciation of the theoretic principle, but will +lie in its application to practice; and that application must always +depend upon instinct, tact, appreciation, as well as upon the +scientific law. Even the aid that science can contribute is given +slowly; meanwhile we must work with these children and lift them to +the largest life. + +It is in relation to this practical work of education that our effort +to study children gets its human value. There are always two points of +view possible with reference to life. From the standpoint of nature +and science, individuals count for little. Nature can waste a thousand +acorns to raise one oak, hundreds of children may be sacrificed that a +truth may be seen. But from the ethical and human point of view the +meaning of all life is in each individual. That one child should be +lost is a kind of ruin to the universe. + +It is this second point of view which every parent and every teacher +must take; and the great practical value of our new study of children +is that it brings us into personal relation with the child world, and +so aids in that subtle touch of life upon life which is the very heart +of education. + +It is therefore that certain phases of the study of child life have a +high worth without giving definite scientific results. Peculiarly +significant among these is the study of the autobiographies of +childhood. The door to the great universe is always to the personal +world. Each of us appreciates child life through his own childhood, +and though the children with whom it is his blessed fortune to be +associated. If then it is possible for him to know intimately another +child through autobiography, one more window has been opened into the +child world--one more interpretative unit is given him through which +to read the lesson of the whole. + +It is true, autobiographies written later in life cannot give us the +absolute truth of childhood. We see our early experiences through the +mists, golden or gray, of the years that lie between. It is poetry as +well as truth, as Goethe recognized in the title of his own self- +study. Nevertheless the individual who has lived the life can best +bring us into touch with it, and the very poetry is as true as the +fact because interpretative of the spirit. + +It is peculiarly necessary that teachers harassed with the routine of +their work, and parents distracted with the multitude of details of +daily existence, should have such windows opened through which they +may look across the green meadows and into the sunlit gardens of +childhood. The result is not theories of child life but appreciation +of children. How one who has read understandingly Sonva Kovalevsky's +story of her girlhood could ever leave unanswered a child starving for +love I cannot see. Mills' account of his early life is worth more than +many theories in showing the deforming effect of an education that is +formal discipline without an awakening of the heart and soul. Goethe's +great study of his childhood and youth must give a new hold upon life +to any one who will appreciatively respond to it. + +A better illustration of the subtle worth of such literature, in +developing appreciation of those inner deeps of child life that escape +definition and evaporate from the figures of the statistician, could +scarcely be found than Pierre Loti's "Story of a Child." There is +hardly a fact in the book. It tells not what the child did or what was +done to him, but what he felt, thought, dreamed. A record of +impressions through the dim years of awakening, it reveals a peculiar +and subtle type of personality most necessary to understand. All that +Loti is and has been is gathered up and foreshadowed in the child. +Exquisite sensitiveness to impressions whether of body or soul, the +egotism of a nature much occupied with its own subjective feelings, a +being atune in response to the haunting melody of the sunset, and the +vague mystery of the seas, a subtle melancholy that comes from the +predominance of feeling over masculine power of action, leading one to +drift like Francesca with the winds of emotion, terrible or sweet, +rather than to fix the tide of the universe in the centre of the +forceful deed--all these qualities are in the dreams of the child as +in the life of the man. + +And the style?--dreamy, suggestive, melodious, flowing on and on with +its exquisite music, wakening sad reveries, and hinting of gray days +of wind and rain, when the gust around the house wails of broken hopes +and ideals so long-deferred as to be half forgotten,--the minor sob of +his music expresses the spirit of Loti as much as do the moods of the +child he describes. + +Such a type, like all others, has its strength and its weakness. Such +a type, like all others, is implicitly in us all. Do we not know it-- +the haunting hunger for the permanence of impressions that come and +go, which pulsates through the book till we can scarcely keep back the +tears; the brooding over the two sombre mysteries--Death and Life (and +which is the darker?); the sense of fate driving life on--the fate of +a temperament that restlessly longs for new impressions and intense +emotions, without the vigor of action that cuts the Gordian knot of +fancy and speculation with the swift sword-stroke of an heroic deed. + +It is fortunate that the translator has caught the subtle charm of +Loti's style, so difficult to render in another speech, in an amazing +degree. This is peculiarly necessary here, for accuracy of translation +means giving the delicate changes of color and elusive chords of music +that voice the moods and impressions of which the book is made. + +Let us read the revelation of this book not primarily to condemn or +praise, or even to estimate and define, but to appreciate. If it be +true that no one ever looked into the Kingdom of Heaven except through +the eyes of a little child, if it be true that the eyes of every +unspoiled child are such a window, take the vision and be thankful. +If, perchance, this window should open toward strange abysses that +reach vaguely away, or upon dark meadows that lie ghost-like in the +mingled light, if out of the abyss rises, undefined, the vast, dim +shape of the mystery, and wakens in us the haunting memories of dead +yesterdays and forgotten years, if we seem carried past the day into +the gray vastness that is beyond the sunset and before the dawn, let +us recognize that the mystery or mysteries, the annunciation of the +Infinite is a little child. + +EDWARD HOWARD GRIGGS. + + + + TO HER MAJESTY ELIZABETH, QUEEN OF ROUMANIA. + + December, 188- + + I am almost too old to undertake this book, for a sort of night is + falling about me; where shall I find the words vital and young + enough for the task? + + To-morrow, at sea, I will commence it; at least I will endeavor to + put into it all that was best of myself at a time when as yet + there was nothing very bad. + + So that romantic love may find no place in it, except in the + illusory form of a vision, I will end it at an early age. + + And to the sovereign lady whose suggestion it was that I write it, + I offer it as a humble token of my respect and admiration. + + PIERRE LOTI. + + + + + + THE STORY OF A CHILD. + + + + CHAPTER I. + + + +It is with some degree of awe that I touch upon the enigma of my +impressions at the commencement of my life. I am almost doubtful +whether they had reality within my own experience, or whether they are +not, rather, recollections mysteriously transmitted--I feel an almost +sacred hesitation when I would fathom their depths. + +I came forth from the darkness of unconsciousness very gradually, for +my mind was illumined only fitfully, but then by outbursts of splendor +that compelled and fascinated my infant gaze. When the light was +extinguished, I lapsed once more into the non-consciousness of the +new-born animal, of the tiny plant just germinating. + +The history of my earliest years is that of a child much indulged and +petted to whom nothing of moment happened; and into whose narrow, +protected life no jarring came that was not foreseen, and the shock of +which was not deadened with solicitous care. In my manners I was +always very tractable and submissive. That I may not make my recital +tedious, I will note without continuity and without the proper +transitions those moments which are impressed upon my mind because of +their strangeness, those moments that are still so vividly +remembered, although I have forgotten many poignant sorrows, many +lands, adventures, and places. + +I was at that time like a fledgling swallow living high up in a niche +in the eaves, who from time to time peeps out over the top of its nest +with its little bright eyes. With the eyes of imagination it sees into +the deeps of space, although to the actual vision only a courtyard and +street are visible; and it sees into depths which it will presently +need to journey through. It was during such moments of clairvoyance +that I had a vision of the infinity of which before my present life I +was a part. Then, in spite of myself, my consciousness flagged, and +for days together I lived the tranquil, subconscious life of early +childhood. + +At first my mind, altogether unimpressed and undeveloped, may be +compared to a photographer's apparatus fitted with its sensitized +glass. Objects insufficiently lighted up make no impression upon the +virgin plates; but when a vivid splendor falls upon them, and when +they are encircled by disks of light, these once dim objects now +engrave themselves upon the glass. My first recollections are of +bright summer days and sparkling noon times,--or more truly, are +recollections of the light of wood fires burning with great ruddy +flames. + + + + CHAPTER II. + + + +As if it were yesterday I recall the evening when I suddenly +discovered that I could run and jump; and I remember that I was +intoxicated by the delicious sensation almost to the point of falling. + +This must have been at about the commencement of my second winter. At +the sad hour of twilight I was in the dining-room of my parents' +house, which room had always seemed a very vast one to me. At first, I +was quiet, made so, no doubt, by the influence of the environing +darkness, for the lamp was not yet lighted. But as the hour for dinner +approached, a maid-servant came in and threw an armful of small wood +into the fireplace to reanimate the dying fire. Immediately there was +a beautiful bright light, and the leaping flames illuminated +everything, and waves of light spread to the far part of the room +where I sat. The flames danced and leaped with a twining motion ever +higher and higher and more gayly, and the tremulous shadows along the +wall ran to their hiding-places--oh! how quickly I arose overwhelmed +with admiration for I recollect that I had been sitting at the feet of +my great-aunt Bertha (at that time already very old) who half dozed in +her chair. We were near a window through which the gray night +filtered; I was seated upon one of those high, old-fashioned foot- +stools with two steps, so convenient for little children who can from +that vantage ground put their heads in grandmother's or grand-aunt's +lap, and wheedle so effectually. + +I arose in ecstasy, and approached the flames; then in the circle of +light which lay upon the carpet I began to walk around and around and +to turn. Ever faster and faster I went, until suddenly I felt an +unwonted elasticity run through my limbs, and in a twinkling I +invented a new and amusing style of motion; it was to push my feet +very hard against the floor, and then to lift them up together +suddenly for a half second. When I fell, up I sprang and recommenced +my play. Bang! Bang! With every increasing noise I went against the +floor, and at last I began to feel a singular but agreeable giddiness +in my head. I knew how to jump! I knew how to run! + +I am convinced that that is my earliest distinct recollection of great +joyousness. + +"Dear me! What is the matter with the child this evening?" asked my +great-aunt Bertha, with some anxiety. And I hear again the unexpected +sound of her voice. + +But I still kept on jumping. Like those tiny foolish moths which of an +evening revolve about the light of a lamp, I went around in the +luminous circle which widened and retracted, ever taking form from the +wavering light of the flames. And I remember all of this so vividly +that my eyes can still see the smallest details of the texture of the +carpet which was the scene of the event. It was of durable stuff +called home-spun, woven in the country by native weavers. (Our house +was still furnished as it had been in my maternal grandmother's time, +as she had arranged it after she had quitted the Island, and come to +the mainland.--A little later I will speak of this Island which had +already a mysterious attraction for my youthful imagination.--It was a +simple country house, notable for its Huguenot austerity; and it was a +home where immaculate cleanliness and extreme order were the sole +luxuries.) + +In the circle of light, which grew ever more and more narrow, I still +jumped; but as I did so I had thoughts that were of an intensity not +habitual with me. At the same time that my tiny limbs discovered their +power, my spirit also knew itself; a burst of light overspread my mind +where dawning ideas still showed forth feebly. And it is without doubt +to the inner awakening that this fleeting moment of my life owes its +existence, owes undoubtedly its permanency in memory. But vainly I +seek for the words, that seem ever to escape me, through which to +express my elusive emotions. . . . Here in the dining-room I look +about and see the chairs standing the length of the wall, and I am +reminded of the aged grandmother, grand-aunts and aunts who always +come at a certain hour and seat themselves in them. Why are they not +here now? At this moment I would like to feel their protecting +presence about me. Probably they are upstairs in their rooms on the +second floor; between them and me there is the dim stairway, the +stairway that I people with shadowy beings the thought of which makes +me tremble. . . . And my mother? I would wish most especially for her, +but I know that she has gone out, gone out into the long streets which +in my imagination have no end. I had myself gone to the door with her +and had asked her: "When returnest thou?" And she had promised me that +she would return speedily. Later they told me that when I was a child +I would never permit any members of the family to leave the house to +go walking or visiting without first obtaining their assurance of a +speedy homecoming. "You will come back soon?" I would say, and I +always asked the question anxiously, as I followed them to the door. + +My mother had departed, and it gave my heart a feeling of heaviness to +know that she was out. Out in the streets! I was content not to be +there where it was cold and dark, where little children so easily lost +their way,--how snug it was to be within doors before the fire that +warmed me through and through; how nice it was to be at home! I had +never realized it until this evening--doubtless it was my first +distinct feeling of attachment to hearth and home, and I was sadly +troubled at the thought of the immense, strange world lying beyond the +door. It was then that I had, for the first time, a conscious +affection for my aged aunts and grand-aunts, who cared for me in +infancy, whom I longed to have seated around me at this dim, sad, +twilight hour. + +In the meantime the once bright and playful flames had died down, the +armful of wood was consumed, and as the lamp was not lighted, the room +was quite dark. I had already stumbled upon the home-spun carpet, but +as I had not hurt myself, I recommenced my amusing play. For an +instant I thought to experience a new but strange joy by going into +the shadowy and distant recesses of the room; but I was overtaken +there by an indefinable terror of something which I cannot name, and I +hastily took refuge in the dim circle of light and looked behind me +with a shudder to see whether anything had followed me from out of +those dark corners. Finally the flames died away entirely, and I was +really afraid; aunt Bertha sat motionless upon her chair, and although +I felt that her eyes were upon me I was not reassured. The very +chairs, the chairs ranged about the room, began to disquiet me because +their long shadows, that stretched behind them exaggerating the height +of ceiling and length of wall, moved restlessly like souls in the +agonies of death. And especially there was a half-open door that led +into a very dark hall, which in its turn opened into a large empty +parlor absolutely dark. Oh! with what intensity I fixed my eyes upon +that door to which I would not for the world have turned my back! + +This was the beginning of those daily winter-evening terrors which in +that beloved home cast such a gloom over my childhood. + +What I feared to see enter that door had no well defined form, but the +fear was none the less definite to me: and it kept me standing +motionless near the dead fire with wide open eyes and fluttering +heart. When my mother suddenly entered the room by a different door, +oh! how I clung to her and covered my face with her dress: it was a +supreme protection, the sanctuary where no harm could reach me, the +harbor of harbors where the storm is forgotten. . . . + +At this instant the thread of recollection breaks, I can follow it no +farther. + + + + + CHAPTER III. + + + +After the ineffaceable impression left by that first fright and that +first dance before the winter fire many months passed during which no +other events were engraven upon my memory, and I relapsed into a +twilight state similar to that at the commencement of my life. But the +mental dimness was pierced now and again with a bright light; as the +gray of early morning is tinged by the rose-color of dawning. + +I believe that the impressions which succeeded were those of the +summer time, of the great sun and nature. I recall feeling an almost +delicious terror when one day I found myself alone in the midst of +tall June grasses that grew high as my head. But here the secret +working of self consciousness is almost too entangled with the things +of the past for me to explain it. + +We were visiting at a country place called Limoise, a place that at +later time played a great part in my life. It belonged to neighbors +and friends, the D----s, whose house in town was directly next to +ours. Perhaps I had visited Limoise the preceding summer, but at that +time I was very like a cocoon before it has crawled from its silken +wrapping. The day that I now refer to is the one in which I was able +to reflect for the first time, in which I first knew the sweetness of +reverie. + +I have forgotten our departure, the carriage ride and our arrival. But +I remember distinctly that late one hot afternoon, as the sun was +setting, I found myself alone in a remote part of a deserted garden. +The gray walls overgrown with ivy and mosses separated its grove of +trees from the moorland and the rocky country round about it. For me, +brought up in the city, the old and solitary garden, where even the +fruit trees were dying from old age, had all the mystery and charm of +a primeval forest. I crossed a border of box, and I was in the midst +of a large uncultivated tract filled with climbing asparagus and great +weeds. Then I cowered down, as is the fashion of little children, that +I might be more effectually hidden by what hid me sufficiently +already, and I remained there motionless with eyes dilated and with +quickening spirit, half afraid, half enraptured. The feeling that I +experienced in the presence of these unfamiliar things was one of +reflection rather than of astonishment. I knew that the bright green +vegetation closing in about me was every where in no less measure than +in the heart of this forest, and emotions, sad and weird and vague +took possession of me and affrighted but fascinated me. That I might +remain hidden as long as possible I crouched lower and still lower, +and I felt the joy a little Indian boy feels when he is in his beloved +forest. + +Suddenly I heard someone call: "Pierre! Pierre! Dear Pierre!" I did +not reply, but instead lay as close as possible to the ground, and +sought to hide under the weeds and the waving branches of the +asparagus. + +Still I heard: "Pierre, Pierre." It was Lucette; I knew her voice, and +from the mockery of her tone I felt sure that she had spied me. But I +could not see her although I looked about me very carefully: no one +was visible! + +With peals of laughter she continued to call, and her voice grew +merrier and merrier. Where can she be? thought I. + +Ah! At last I spied her perched upon the twisted branch of a tree that +was overhung with gray moss! + +I was fairly caught and I came out of my green hiding place. + +As I rose I gazed over the wild and flowering things, and saw the +corner of the old moss-grown wall that enclosed the garden. That wall +was destined to be at a later time a very familiar haunt of mine, for +on the Thursday holidays during my college life I spent many a happy +hour sitting upon it contemplating the peaceful and quiet country, and +there I mused, to the chirping accompaniment of the crickets, of those +distant countries fairer and sunnier than my own. And upon that summer +day those gray and crumbling stones, defaced by the sun and weather, +and overgrown with mosses, gave me for the first time an indefinable +impression of the persistence of things; a vague conception of +existences antedating my own, in times long past. + +Lucette D----, my elder by eight or ten years, seemed to me already a +grown person. I cannot recall the time when I did not know her. Later +I came to love her as a sister, and her early death in her prime was +one of the first real griefs of my boyhood. + +And the first recollection I have of her is as I saw her in the +branches of the old pear tree. Her image doubtless begets a vividness +from the two new emotions with which it is blended: the enchanting +uneasiness I felt at the invasion of green nature and the melancholy +reverie that took possession of me as I contemplated the old wall, +type of ancient things and olden times. + + + + + CHAPTER IV. + + + +I will now endeavor to explain the impression that the sea made upon +me at our first brief and melancholy encounter, which took place at +twilight upon the evening of my arrival at the Island. + +Notwithstanding the fact that I could scarcely see it, it had so +remarkable an effect on me that in a single moment it was engraven +upon my memory forever. I feel a retrospective shudder run through me +when my spirit broods upon the recollection. + +We had but newly arrived at this village near St. Ongeoise where my +parents had rented a fisherman's house for the bathing season. I knew +that we had come here for something called the sea, but I had had no +glimpse of it (a line of dunes hid it from me because of my short +stature), and I was extremely impatient to become acquainted with it; +therefore after dinner, as night was falling, I went alone to seek +this mysterious thing. + +The air was sharp and biting, and unlike any I had experienced, and +from behind the hillocks of sand, along which the path led, there came +a faint but majestic noise. Everything affrighted me, the unfamiliar +way, the twilight falling from the overcast sky, and the loneliness of +this part of the village. But inspired by one of those great and +sudden resolutions, that come sometimes to the most timid, I went +forward with a firm step. + +Suddenly I stopped overcome and almost paralyzed by fear, for +something took shape before me, something dark and surging sprang up +from all sides at the same time and it seemed to stretch out +endlessly. It was something so vast and full of motion that I was +seized with a deadly vertigo--it was the sea of my imagining! Without +a moment's hesitation, without asking how this knowledge had been +wrought, without astonishment even, I recognized it and I trembled +with a great emotion. It was so dark a green as to be almost black; to +me it seemed unstable, perfidious, all ingulfing, always turbulent, +and of a sinister, menacing aspect. Above it, in harmony with it, +stretched the gray and lowering sky. + +And far away, very far away, upon the immeasurable distant horizon I +perceived a break between the sky and the waters, and a pale yellow +light showed through this cleft. + +Had I been to the sea before to recognize it thus quickly? Perhaps I +had, but without being conscious of it, for when I was about five or +six months old I had been brought to the Island by my great aunt, my +grandmother's sister; or perhaps because it had played so great a part +in my sea-faring ancestors' lives I was born with a nascent conception +of it and its immensity. + +We communed together a moment, one with the other--I was deeply +fascinated. At our first encounter I am sure I had a nebulous +presentiment that I would one day go to it in spite of my hesitation, +in spite of all the efforts put forth to hold me back,--and the +emotion that overwhelmed me in the presence of the sea was not only +one of fear, but I felt also an inexpressible sadness, and I seemed to +feel the anguish of desolation, bereavement and exile. With downcast +mien, and with hair blown about by the wind, I turned and ran home. I +was in the extreme haste to be with my mother; I wished to embrace her +and to cling close to her; I desired to be with her so that she might +console me for the thousand indefinite, anticipated sorrows that +surged through my heart at the sight of those green waters, so vast +and so deep. + + + + + CHAPTER V. + + + +My mother!--I have already mentioned her two or three times in the +course of this recital, but without stopping to speak of her at +length. It seems that at first she was no more to me than a natural +and instinctive refuge where I ran for shelter from all terrifying and +unfamiliar things, from all the dark forebodings that had no real +cause. + +But I believe she took on reality and life for the first time in the +burst of ineffable tenderness which I felt when one May morning she +entered my room with a bouquet of pink hyacinths in her hand; she +brought in with her as she came a ray of sunlight. + +I was convalescing from one of the maladies peculiar to children,-- +measles or whooping cough, I know not which,--and I had been ordered +to remain in bed and to keep warm. By the rays of light that filtered +in through the closed shutters I divined the springtime warmth and +brightness of the sun and air, and I felt sad that I had to remain +behind the curtains of my tiny white bed; I wished to rise and go out; +but most of all I had a desire to see my mother. + +The door opened and she entered, smiling. Ah, I remember it so well! I +recall so distinctly how she looked as she stood upon the threshold of +the door. And I remember that she brought in with her some of the +sunlight and balminess of the spring day. + +I see again the expression of her face as she looked at me; and I hear +the sound of her voice, and recall the details of her beloved dress +that would look funny and old-fashioned to me now. She had returned +from her morning shopping, and she wore a straw hat trimmed with +yellow roses and a shawl of lilac barege (it was the period of the +shawl) sprinkled with tiny bouquets of violets. Her dark curls (the +poor beloved curls to-day, alas! so thin and white) were at this time +without a gray hair. There was about her the fragrance of the May day, +and her face as it looked that morning with its broad brimmed hat is +still distinctly present with me. Besides the bouquet of pink +hyacinths, she had brought me a tiny watering-pot, an exact imitation +in miniature of the crockery ones so much used by the country people. + +As she leaned over my bed to embrace me I felt as if every wish was +gratified. I no longer had a desire to weep, nor to rise from my bed, +nor to go out. She was with me and that sufficed--I was consoled, +tranquillized, and re-created by her gracious presence. + +I was, I think, a little more than three years old at this time, and +my mother must have been about forty-two years of age; but I had not +the least notion of age in regard to her, and it had never occurred to +me to wonder whether she was young or old; nor did I realize until a +later time that she was beautiful. No, at this period that she was her +own dear self was enough; to me she was in face and form a person so +apart and so unique that I would not have dreamed of comparing her +with any one else. From her whole being there emanated such a +joyousness, security and tenderness, and so much goodness that from +thence was born my understanding of faith and prayer. + +I would that I could speak hallowed words to the first blessed form +that I find in the book of memory. I would it were possible that I +could greet my mother with words filled with the meaning I wish to +convey. They are words which cause bountiful tears to flow, but tears +fraught with I know not how much of the sweetness of consolation and +joy, words that are ever, and in spite of everything, filled with the +hope of an immortal reunion. + +And since I have touched upon this mystery that has had such an +influence upon my soul, I will here set down that my mother alone is +the only person in the world of whom I have the feeling that death +cannot separate me. With other human beings, those whom I have loved +with all my heart and soul, I have tried to imagine a hereafter, a +to-morrow in which there shall be no to-morrow; but no, I cannot! +Rather I have always had a horrible consciousness of our nothingness-- +dust to dust, ashes to ashes. Because of my mother alone have I been +able to keep intact the faith of my early days. It still seems to me +that when I have finished playing my poor part in life, when I no +longer run in the overgrown paths that lead to the unattainable, when +I am through amusing humanity with my conceits and my sorrows, I will +go there where my mother, who has gone before me, is, and she will +receive me; and the smile of serenity that she now wears in my memory +will have become one of triumphant realization. + +True, I see that distant region only dimly, and it has no more +substance than a pale gray vision; my words, however intangible and +elusive, give too definite a form to my dreamy conceptions. But still +(I speak as a little child, with the child's faith), but still I +always think of my mother as having, in that far off place, preserved +her earthly aspect. I think of her with her dear white curls and the +straight lines of her beautiful profile that the years may have +impaired a little, but which I still find perfect. The thought that +the face of my mother shall one day disappear from my eyes forever, +that it is no more than combined elements subject to disintegration, +and that she will be lost in the universal abyss of nothingness, not +only makes my heart bleed, but it causes me to revolt as at something +unthinkable and monstrous; it cannot be! I have the feeling that there +is about her something which death cannot touch. + +My love for my mother (the only changeless love of my life) is so free +from all material feeling that that alone gives me an inexplicable +hope, almost gives me a confidence in the immortality of the soul. + +I cannot very well understand why the vision of my mother near my bed +of sickness should that morning have impressed me so vividly, for she +was nearly always with me. It all seems very mysterious; it is as if +at that particular moment she was for the first time revealed to me. + +And why among the treasured playthings of my childhood has the tiny +watering-pot taken on the value and sacred dignity of a relic? So much +so indeed, that when I am far distant on the ocean, in hours of +danger, I think of it with tenderness, and see it in the place where +it has lain for years, in the little bureau, never opened, mixed in +with broken toys; and should it disappear I would feel as if I had +lost an amulet that could not be replaced. + +And the simple shawl of lilac barege, found recently among some old +clothing laid aside to be given to the poor, why have I put it away as +carefully as if it were a priceless object? Because in its color (now +faded), in its quaint Indian pattern and tiny bouquets of violets, I +still find an emanation from my mother; I believe that I borrow +therefrom a holy calm and sweet confidence that is almost a faith. And +mingled in with the other feelings there is perhaps a melancholy +regret for those May mornings of long ago that seemed so much brighter +than are those of to-day. + +Truly I fear this book, the most personal I have ever written, will +weary many. + +In transcribing these memories in the calm of middle life, so +favorable to reverie, I had constantly present in my thought the +lovely queen to whom I would dedicate this book; it is as if I were +writing her a long letter with the full assurance of being understood +in all those sacred matters to which words give but an inadequate +expression. + +Perhaps you will understand also, my dear unknown readers, who with +kindly sympathy have followed me thus far; and all those who cherish, +or who have been cherished by their mothers will not smile at the +childish things written down here. + +But this chapter will certainly seem ridiculous to those who are +strangers to an all absorbing love, they will not be able to imagine +that I have a deep pity to exchange for their cynical smiles. + + + + + CHAPTER VI. + + + +Before I finish writing of the confused memories I have of the +commencement of my life I wish to speak of another ray of sunshine--a +sad ray this time,--that has left an ineffaceable impression upon me, +and the meaning of which will never be clear to me. + +Upon a Sunday, after we had returned from church, the ray appeared to +me. It came through a half-open window and fell into the stairway, and +as it lengthened itself upon the whiteness of the wall it took on a +peculiar, weird shape. + +I had returned from church with my mother and as I mounted the stairs +I took her hand. The house was filled with a humming silence peculiar +to the noontime of very hot summer days (it was August or September). +Following the habit of our country the shutters were half closed +making indoors, during the heated period of the day, a sort of +twilight. + +As I entered the house there came to me an appreciation of the +stillness of Sunday that in the country and in peaceful byways of +little towns is like the peace of death. But when I saw the ray of +sunlight fall obliquely through the staircase window, I had a feeling +more poignant than ordinary sorrow; I had a feeling altogether +incomprehensible and absolutely new in which there seemed infused a +conception of the brevity of life's summers, their rapid flight and +the incomputable ages of the sun. But other elements still more +mysterious, that it would be impossible for me to explain even +vaguely, entered therein. + +I wish to add to the history of this ray of sunshine the sequel that +is intimately connected with it. Years passed; I became a man, and +after having been among many people and experienced many adventures I +lived for an autumn and winter in an isolated house in an unfrequented +part of Stamboul. It was there that every evening at approximately the +same hour, a ray of sunlight came in through the window and fell +obliquely on the wall and lit up the niche (hollowed out of the stone +wall) in which I had placed an Athenian vase. And I never saw that ray +of sunlight without thinking of the one I had seen upon that Sunday of +long ago; nor without having the same, precisely the same sad emotion, +scarcely diminished by time, and always full of the same mystery. And +when I had to leave Turkey, when I was obliged to quit my dangerous +but adored lodgings in Stamboul, with all my busy and hurried +preparations for departure there was mingled this strange regret: +never more should I see the oblique ray of sunshine come into the +stairway window and fall upon the niche in the wall where the Greek +vase stood. + +Perhaps under all of this there may have been, if not recollections of +a previous personal experience, at least the reflected inchoate +thoughts of ancestors which I am unable in any clearer way to bring +out of darkness. But enough! I must say no more, for I again find +myself in the land of vague fancy, gliding phantoms and illusive +nothings. + +For this almost unintelligible chapter there is no excuse that I can +offer, save that I have written it with the greatest frankness and +sincerity. + + + + + CHAPTER VII. + + + +And I now recall the impressions of springtime, all the fresh splendor +of May; and I remember vividly the lonely road called the Fountain +road. + +(As I am endeavoring to put my recollections into some sort of order I +think that at this time I must have been about five years old.) + +I was old enough at any rate to take walks with my father and my +sister, and I went out with them this dewy morning. I was in ecstasy +to see that everything had become so green, to see the budding foliage +and the tasselled shrubs and hedges. Along the sides of the road the +grass was all the same length, and the flowers in the grass with their +exquisite mingling of the red of the geranium and the blue of the +speedwell, made the whole earth seem a great bouquet. As I plucked the +flowers I scarcely knew which way to run; in my eagerness I trod upon +them and my legs became wet from the dew--I marvelled at all the +richness at my disposal, and I longed to take great armfuls of the +flowers and carry them away with me. + +My sister, who had gathered a sprig of hawthorn, one of iris and some +long sheath-like grasses leaned towards me, and took my hand, and +said: "You have enough for the present; you see, dear, that we could +never gather all of them." + +But I did not heed, so absolutely intoxicated was I with the +magnificence about me, the like of which I did not recall ever to have +seen before. + +That was the beginning of those almost daily excursions that I took +with my father and sister, and that I kept up for so long a time +(almost to my boarding-school days). It is through them that I became +so well acquainted with the surrounding country and with the varieties +of flowers found there. Poor fields and meadows of my native country! +So monotonous, so flat, one so like another; fields of hay and daisies +where in childhood I would disappear from sight and hide under the +green vegetation. Fields of corn and paths bordered with hawthorn, I +love you all in spite of your monotony! + +Toward the west, in the far distance, my eyes sought for a glimpse of +the sea. Sometimes when we had gone a long way there would appear upon +the horizon, among the other lines there, a straight bluish one; it +was the sea; and it lured me to it finally as a great and patient +lover lures, who sure of his power is willing to wait. + +My sister and my brother, of whom I have not spoken before, were +considerably older than I; it seemed almost as if we belonged to +different generations. For that reason they petted me even more than +did my father and mother, my grandmother and aunts; and as I was the +only child among them I was cherished like a little hot-house plant, I +was too tenderly guarded and remained all too unacquainted with thorns +and brambles. + + + + + CHAPTER VIII. + + + +Someone has advanced the theory that those persons endowed with a gift +for painting (either with color or with words) probably belong to a +half-blind species; accustomed to living in a partial light, in a sort +of misty grayness, they turn their gaze inward; and when by chance +they do look out their impressions are ten times more vivid than are +those of ordinary people. + +To me that seems a little paradoxical. + +But it is true that sometimes an enveloping darkness aids one to +clearer vision; as in a panorama building, for example, where the +obscurity about the entrance prepares one better for the climax, and +gives the scene depicted a more real and vivid appearance. + +In the course of my life I would without doubt have been less +impressed by the ever shifting phantasmagoria of existence had I not +begun my journey in a place almost without distinctive color, in a +tranquil corner of the most commonplace little town, receiving an +education austerely pious; and where my longest journey was bounded by +the forests of Limoise (as wonderful to me as a primeval forest) and +by the shores of the island of Oleron, that seemed very immense when I +went to it to visit my aged aunts. + +But after all is said, it was in the yard about our house that I +passed the happiest of my summers--it seemed to me that that was my +particular kingdom, and I adored it. + +It was in truth a beautiful yard, much more sunny and airy than the +majority of city gardens. Its long avenue of green and flowery +branches, that overtopped the heads of the neighboring fruit trees, +was bordered on the south by a low and ancient wall over which grew +roses and honeysuckles. The long leafy avenue gave the impression of +great depth, and its perspective melted into a bower of vines and +jasmine bushes that in turn became a great verdant place, which came +to an end at a storehouse of ancient construction, whose gray stones +were hidden under ivy vines. + +Ah! How I loved that garden, and how much I still love it! + +I believe the keenest, earliest memories are of the beautiful long +summer evenings. Oh! the return from a walk during those long, clear +twilights that certainly were more delicious than are those of to-day. +What joy to re-enter that yard which the thorn-apples and the +honeysuckles filled with the sweetest odor, to enter and see from the +gate all the long avenue of tangled greenness. Through an opening in a +bower of Virginia Creeper I could see the rosy splendor of the setting +sun; and somewhat removed in the gathering shadows of the foliage, +there were distinguishable three or four persons. The persons, it is +true, were very quiet and they were dressed in black, but they were +nevertheless very reassuring to me, very familiar and very much +beloved: they were the forms of mother, grandmother and aunts. Then I +would run to them hastily and throw myself upon their laps, and that +was always one of the happiest moments of my day. + + + + + CHAPTER IX. + + + +In the month of March, as the shadows of twilight gathered, two little +children were seated very close together upon a low footstool--two +little ones, between the ages of five and six, dressed in short +trousers with white pinafores over them, as was the fashion of the +time. After having played wildly they were now quietly amusing +themselves with paper and pencils. The dim light seemed to fill them +with a vague fear, and it troubled their spirits. + +Of the two children only one was drawing--it was I. The other, a +friend invited over for the day, an exceptional thing, was watching me +with great attention. With some difficulty (trusting me meantime) he +followed the fantastic movements of my pencil whose intention I took +care to explain to him at some length. And my oral interpretation was +necessary, for I was busy executing two drawings that I entitled +respectively, "The Happy Duck" and "The Unhappy Duck." + +The room in which we were seated must have been furnished about the +year 1805, at the time of the marriage of my now-very-old grandmother, +who still occupied it, and who this evening was seated in the chair of +the Directory period; she was singing to herself and she took no +notice of us. + +My memories of my grandmother are indistinct for her death occurred +shortly after this time; but as I will never again, in the course of +this recital, have a more vivid impression of her, I will here insert +what I know of her history. + +It seems that in the stress of all sorts of troubles she had been a +brave and noble mother. After reverses that were so general in those +days, after losing her husband at the Battle of Trafalgar, and her +elder son at the shipwreck of the Medusa, she went resolutely to work +to educate her younger son, my father, until such time as he should be +able to support himself. At about her eightieth year (which was not +far distant when I came into the world) the senility of second +childhood had set in; at that time I knew nothing about the tragedy of +the loss of memory and I could not realize the vacancy of her mind and +soul. + +She would often stand for a long time before a mirror and talk in a +most amiable way to her own reflection, which she called, "my good +neighbor" or "my dear neighbor." It was also her mania to sing with a +most excessive ardor the Marseillaise, the Parisiennes, the "Song of +Farewell," and all the noble songs of the transition time, which had +been the rage in her young womanhood. + +During these exciting times she had lived quietly, and had occupied +herself entirely with her household cares and her son's education. For +that reason it seems the more singular that from her disordered mind, +just about as it was to take its journey into complete darkness and to +become disintegrated through death, there should come this tardy echo +of that tempestuous time. + +I enjoyed listening to her very much and often I would laugh, but +without any irreverence, and I never was the least afraid of her. She +was extremely lovely and had delicate and regular features, and her +expression was very sweet. Her abundant hair was silver-gray, and upon +her cheeks there was a color similar to that of a faded rose leaf, a +color which the old people of that generation often retained into +extreme old age. I remember that she usually wore a red cashmere shawl +about her shoulders, and that she always had on an old-fashioned cap +trimmed with green ribbons. There was something very modest and gentle +and pleasing about her still graceful little body. + +Her room, where I liked to come to play because it was so large and +sunny, was furnished as simply as a Presbyterian parsonage: the waxed +walnut furniture was of the Directory period, the large bed had a +canopy of thick, red, cotton stuff and the walls were painted an ochre +yellow; and upon them in gilt frames, slightly tarnished, were hung +water colors representing vases of flowers. I very soon discovered +that this room was furnished in a very simple and old-fashioned way, +and I thought to myself that the good old grandmother who sang so +constantly must be much poorer than my other grandmother, who was +younger by twenty years, and who always dressed in black--which last +matter seemed an elegant distinction to me. + +But to return to my drawings! I think that the pictures of those two +ducks, occupying such different stations in life, were the first I +ever drew. + +At the bottom of the picture called "The Happy Duck" I had drawn a +tiny house, and near the duck himself there was a large, kind woman +who was calling him to her so that she might give him food. + +"The Unhappy Duck," on the other hand, was swimming about solitary and +alone on a sort of hazy sea, which I had represented by drawing two or +three straight lines, and in the distance one could see the outline of +a gloomy shore. The thin paper, a leaf torn from a book, had print on +the reverse side, and the letters showed through in grayish flecks and +gave the curious impression as of clouds in the sky. And that little +drawing, with less form than a school-boy's blackboard scrawl, was +completely transfigured by those gray spots, and because of them it +took on for me a deep and dreadful significance. Aided by the dim +light in the room the pictured scene became a vision that faded away +into the distance like the pale surface of the sea. I was terrified at +my own work; I was astonished to find in it those things that I had +not put there; to discover in it those things which elsewhere had +given me such a well remembered anguish. + +"Oh!" I said with exaltation to my young companion, who did not +understand anything of what was going forward, "Oh!" I exclaimed with +a voice full of emotion, "you may see it; I cannot bear to look at +it!" I covered the picture with my hands, but nevertheless I peeped at +it very often; and it was so vividly impressed upon my mind that I can +still recall it as it appeared to me transfigured: a gleam of light +lay upon the horizon of that sea so awkwardly represented, the heavens +appeared to be filled with rain, and it seemed to be a dreary winter +evening in which there was a fierce wind blowing. + +The "Unhappy Duck" solitary, far away from his family and friends was +making his way toward the foggy shore over which there hung an air of +extreme sadness and desolation. And certainly for one fleeting moment +I had a prescience of those heartaches that I was to know later in the +course of my sailor life. I seemed to have a presentiment of those +stormy December evenings when my boat was to enter, to take shelter +until the morning, one of those uninhabited bays upon the coast of +Brittany; more particularly I had a prescience of those twilights of +the Antarctic winter when, in about the latitude of Magellan, we were +to go in search of protection towards those sterile shores that are as +inhospitable and as absolutely deserted as the waters surrounding +them. + +The vision faded and I once more found myself in my grandmother's +large room enveloped in the shadows of the evening. My grandmother was +singing, and I was again a tiny being who had seen nothing of the +large world, who had fears without knowing wherefore, and who did not +even know the cause of the tears that he shed. + +Since then I have often observed that the rudimentary scrawls made by +children, and which as representations are incorrect and inadequate, +impress them much more than do the able and correct drawing of adults. +For although theirs are incomplete they add to them a thousand things +of their own seeing and imagining; and they add to them also the +thousand things that grow in the deep subsoil of their consciousness-- +the things which no brush would be able to paint. + + + + + CHAPTER X. + + + +Upon the second floor, above the room occupied by my poor old +grandmother, who sang the Marseillaise so constantly, in that part of +the house overlooking the yard and the gardens, lived my great-aunt +Bertha. + +From her windows, across the houses and the walls covered with roses +and jasmine, one could see the ramparts of the town. They were so near +to us that their old trees were visible; and beyond them lay those +great plains of our country called prees (prairies) all so alike, and +as monotonous as the neighboring seas. From the window one also saw +the river. At full tide, when it almost overflowed its banks, it +looked, as it wound along through the green meadows, like silver lace; +and the large and small boats that passed in the far distance mounted +upon this silver thread toward the harbor and from there sailed out +into the great sea. + +As this was our only glimpse of real country the windows in my aunt +Bertha's room had always a great attraction for me. Especially had +they in the evening at sunset, for from them I could watch the sun +sink mysteriously behind the prairies. Oh! those sunsets that I saw +from my aunt Bertha's windows, what ecstasy overcast with melancholy +they awakened in me! The winter sunsets seen through the closed +windows were a pale rose color. Those of summer time, upon stormy +evenings, after a hot, bright day, I contemplated from the open +window, and as I did so I would breathe in the sweet odors given out +by the jasmine blossoms growing on the wall: it seems to me that there +are no such sunsets now as there were then. When the sunsets were +notably splendid and unusual, if I was not in the room, aunt Bertha, +who never missed one, would call out hastily: "Dearie! Dearie! Come +quickly!" From any corner of the house I heard that call and +understood it, and I went swift as a hurricane and mounted the stairs +four steps at a time. I mounted the more rapidly because the stairway +had already begun to fill with dread shadows; and in the turnings and +corners I saw the imaginary forms of ghosts and monsters that at +nightfall always pursued me as I ran up the stairs. + +My aunt Bertha's room, with its simple white muslin curtains, was as +modest as my grandmother's. The walls, covered with an old-fashioned +paper in vogue at the commencement of the century, were ornamented +with water colors similar to those in my grandmother's room. The +picture that I looked at most often was a pastel after Raphael of a +virgin in white, blue and rose color. The rays of the setting sun +always fell upon this picture (I have already said the hour of sunset +was the time I preferred most to be in this room). This virgin was +very much like my aunt Bertha; in spite of the great difference in +their ages, one was struck with the resemblance between the straight +lines and regularity of their profiles. + +On this same floor, but upon the street side, lived my other +grandmother (the one who always dressed in black) and her daughter, my +aunt Claire, the person in the house who petted me most. + +Upon winter evenings, after I had been to my aunt Bertha's room to see +the sunset, it was my custom to go to them. I usually found them +together in my grandmother's room and I would seat myself near the +fire in a little chair placed there for me. But the twilight hour +spent with them was always a disturbing one. . . . After all the +amusements, all the day's running and playing, to sit in the dusk +almost motionless upon my tiny chair, with eyes wide open, uneasily +watching for the least change in the shadows, especially on that side +of the room where the door opened on the dim stairway, was very +painful to me. . . . I am sure that if my grandmother and aunt had +known of the melancholy and terrors which the twilight induced in me, +they would have spared me by lighting the lamp, but they did not know +my sufferings; and it was the custom of the aged persons by whom I was +surrounded, to sit tranquilly at nightfall in their accustomed places +without having need for a lighted lamp. As it grew darker one or the +other, grandmother or aunt, would draw her chair closer to me, and +when I had that protection about me I felt completely happy and +reassured and would say: "Please tell me stories about the Island." + +The Island, that is the Island of Oleron, was my mother's native +place, my grandmother's and aunt's also, which they had quitted twenty +years before my birth to establish themselves upon the main land. The +Island, or the least thing that came from it, had a singular charm for +me. + +It was quite near us, for from a garret window at the top of the house +we could, upon a very clear day, see the extreme end of its extensive +plain; it appeared a little bluish line against a still paler one +which was the arm of the ocean separating us from it. . . . To get to +it we had to take a long journey in wretched country wagons and in +sailing boats; and often our boat had to make its way there in the +teeth of a strong gale. At this time in the village of St. Pierre +Oleron I had three old aunts who lived very modestly upon the revenues +of their salt marshes (the remains of a once great inheritance), and +their annual rents which the peasants still paid with sacks of wheat. +. . . When I went to visit them at St. Pierre there was for me a +certain joy, mingled with many kinds of conflicting emotions, which I +cannot explain, in trying to picture to myself their once great +station. + +The Huguenot austerity of their manners, their mode of life, their +house and their furniture all belonged to a past time, to a bygone +generation. The sea surrounded and isolated us, and the wind +constantly swept over the moorland and over the great stretches of +sandy beach. + +My nurse was also from the Island, of a Huguenot family, which +descending from father to son had been with us for a long time; and +she would say: "At home, on the Island," in such a way that with a +wave of emotion I understood her great homesickness for it. + +We had about us a number of little articles that had come from there, +and which had places of honor in our home. We had some black pebbles +large as cannon-balls, that had been chosen from the thousands lying +on the Long-Beach because centuries of washing had polished and +rounded them exquisitely. These pebbles always played an important +part every winter evening, for with the greatest regularity the old +people would put them into the chimney-place where a wood fire blazed +and crackled; afterwards they slipped them into calico bags of a +flowered pattern, also brought from the Island, and took them to bed +where they served to keep their feet warm during the night. + +In our cellar we had wooden props and firkins, and also a number of +straight elm poles for holding the washing which had been cut from the +choicest young trees in my grandmother's forest. I had the greatest +veneration for all these things. I knew that my grandmother no longer +owned the forests, nor the salt marshes, nor the vineyards; for I had +heard them say that she had sold them one at a time to put the money +into investments upon the mainland; and that an incompetent notary by +his bad investments had greatly reduced her income. + +When I went to the Island and the old salt makers and vine dressers, +who had at one time worked for our family, still loyal and respectful +called me "our little master," I knew they did so out of pure +politeness and altogether in deference to our past grandeur. + +I regretted that I could not spend my life in tending the vineyards +and the harvests, the occupations of several of my ancestors. Such a +life seemed a much more desirable one to me than my own which was +passed in a house in town. + +The stories of the Island that my grandmother and aunt Claire related +to me were generally of the happenings of their own childhood, a +childhood that seemed so very far away that to me it had no more +reality than a dream. + +There were stories of grandfathers, long dead; of great-uncles whom I +had never known, dead also for many years. When my aunt told me their +names and described them to me I would abandon myself to reverie. +There was in particular a grandfather Samuel who had preached at the +time of the religious persecution, whom I thought an extraordinarily +interesting person. + +I did not care whether the stories were different or not, and I would +ask for the same ones over and over. Often they told me stories of +journeys they had taken on the little donkeys that played such an +important part in the lives of the people of St. Pierre. They would +ride upon them to visit distant properties and vineyards; to get to +these it was often necessary to travel along the sands of the Long- +Beach, and sometimes of an evening during these expeditions terrible +storms would burst upon the travellers and compel them to take shelter +for the night in the inns and farmhouses. + +And as I sat in the darkness that no longer had terrors for me, my +imagination busy with the things and peoples of other days, tinkle, +tinkle would go the dinner bell; then I rose and jumped for joy, and +we would go down to the dining-room together and find all the family +gathered there in the bright gay room: then I would run to my mother +and in an excess of emotion hide my face in her dress. + + + + + CHAPTER XI. + + + +Gaspard was a little crop-eared dog who was saved from absolute +homeliness by the vivacious and kindly expression of his eyes. I do +not now recall how he came to domesticate himself with us, but I do +know that I loved him very tenderly. + +One winter afternoon, when he and I were out for a walk, he ran away +from me. I consoled myself, however, by saying that he would certainly +return to the house alone, and I went home in a happy frame of mind. +But when night came and he was still absent I grew very heavy of +heart. + +My parents had at dinner that evening an accomplished violinist and +they had given me permission to remain up later than usual so that I +might hear him. The first sweep of his bow which preluded I know not +what slow and desolate movement, sounded to me like an invocation to +those dark woodland paths in which, in the deeps of night, one feels +that he is lost and abandoned; as the musician played I had a vision +of Gaspard mistaking his way at the cross-roads because of the rain, +and I saw him take an unfamiliar path that led forever away from +friends and home. Then my tears began to flow, but no one perceived +them; and as I wept the violin continued to fill the silence with its +sad wailing, and it seemed to get a response from bottomless abysses +inhabited by phantoms to which I could give neither a form nor name. + +That was my introduction to reverie awaking music, and years passed +before I again experienced such sensations, for the little piano +pieces that I began to play for myself soon after this (in a +remarkable way for a child of my age they said) sounded to me only +like sweet, rhythmical noise. + + + + + CHAPTER XII. + + + +I wish now to speak of the anguish caused by a story that was read to +me. (I seldom read for myself, and in fact I disliked books very +much.) + +A very disobedient little boy who had run away from his family and his +native land, years later, after the death of his parents and his +sister, returned alone to visit his parental home. This took place in +November, and naturally the author described the dull gray sky and +spoke of the bleak wind that blew the few remaining leaves from the +trees. + +In a deserted garden, in an arbor stripped of all its green, the +prodigal son in stooping down found among the autumn leaves a bluish +bead that had lain there since the time he had played in the bower +with his sister. + +Oh! at that point I begged them to cease reading, for I felt the sobs +coming. I could see, see vividly, that solitary garden, that leafless +old arbor, and half-hidden under the reddish leaves I saw that blue +bead, souvenir of the dead sister. . . . It depressed me dreadfully +and gave me a conception of that inevitable fading away of everything +and every one, of the great universal change that comes to all. + +It is strange that my tenderly guarded infancy should have been so +full of sad emotions and morbid reflections. + +I am sure that the sad days and happenings were rare, and that I lived +the joyous and careless life of other children; but just because the +happy days were so habitual to me they made no impression upon my +mind, and I can no longer recall them. + +My memories of the summer time are so similar that they break with the +splendor of the sun into the dark places and things of my mind. + +And always the great heat, the deep blue skies, the sparkling sand of +the beach and the flood of light upon the white lime walls of the +cottages of the little villages upon the "Island" induced in me a +melancholy and sleepiness which I afterwards experienced with even +greater intensity in the land of the Turk. + + + + + CHAPTER XIII. + + + +"And at midnight there was a cry made: Behold, the Bridegroom cometh; +go ye out to meet him. . . . And they that were ready went in with him +to the marriage; and the door was shut. Afterward came also the other +virgins, saying, Lord, Lord, open to us. + +"But he answered and said, Verily, I say unto you, I know you not. + +"Watch therefore, for ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein the +Son of man cometh." + +After reading these verses in a loud voice, my father closed the +Bible; in the room where we were assembled there was a sound of chairs +being moved and we all went down upon our knees to pray. Following the +usage in old Huguenot families, it was our custom to have prayers just +before retiring to our rooms for the night. + +"And the door was shut. . . ." Although I still knelt I no longer +heard the prayer, for the foolish virgins appeared to me. They were +enveloped in white veils that billowed about them as they stood before +the door holding in their hands the little lamps whose flickering +flames were so soon to be extinguished, leaving them in the gloom +without before that closed door, closed against them irrevocably and +forever. . . . And a time could come then when it would be too late; +when the Saviour weary of our trespassing would no longer listen to +our supplications! I had never thought that that was possible. And a +fear more terrifying and awful than any I had ever known before +completely overwhelmed me at the thought of eternal damnation. . . . + + * * * * * + +For a long time, for many weeks and months, the parable of the foolish +virgins haunted me. And every evening, when darkness came, I would +repeat to myself the words that sounded so beautiful and yet so +dismaying: "Watch therefore, for ye know neither the day nor the hour +wherein the Son of man cometh." If he should come to-night, was ever +my thought, I would be awakened by a noise as of the sound of rushing +waters, by the blare of the trumpet of the angel of the Lord +announcing the terrifying approach of the end of the world. And I +could never go to sleep until I had said a long prayer in which I +commended myself to the mercy of my Saviour. + +I do not believe there was ever a little child who had a more +sensitive conscience than I; about everything I was so morbidly +scrupulous that I was often misunderstood by those who loved me best, +a thing that caused me the most poignant heartaches. I remember having +been tormented for days merely because in relating something I had not +reported it precisely as it had happened. And to such a point did I +carry my squeamishness of conscience that when I had finished with my +recital or statement I would murmur in a low voice, in the tone of one +who tells over his beads, these words: "After all, perhaps I do not +remember just exactly how it was." When I think of the thousand +remorses and fears which my trifling wrong doings caused me, and which +from my sixth to my eighth year cast a gloom over my childhood, I feel +a sort of retrospective depression. + +At that period if any one asked me what I hoped to be in the future, +when a man, without hesitation I would answer: "I expect to be a +minister,"--and to me the religious vocation seemed the very grandest +one. And those about me would smile and without doubt they thought, +inasmuch as I too wished it, that it was the best career for me. + +In the evening, especially at night, I meditated constantly of that +hereafter which to pronounce the name of filled me with terror: +eternity. And my departure from this earth,--this earth which I had +scarcely seen, of which I had seen no more than the tiniest and most +colorless corner--seemed to me a thing very near at hand. With a +blending of impatience and mortal fear I thought of myself as soon to +be clothed in a resplendent white robe, as soon to be seated in a +great splendor of light among the multitude of angels and chosen ones +around the throne of the Blessed Lamb; I saw myself in the midst of a +great moving orb that, to the sound of music, oscillated slowly and +continuously in the infinite void of heaven. + + + + + CHAPTER XIV. + + + +"Once upon a time a little girl when she opened a large fruit that had +come from the colonies, a big creature came out of it, a green +creature, and it bit her and that made her die." + +It was my little friend Antoinette (she was six and I seven) who was +telling me the story which had been suggested to her because we were +about to break and divide an apricot between us. We were at the +extreme end of her garden in the lovely month of June under a +branching apricot tree. We sat very close together upon the same stool +in a house about as big as a bee-hive, which we had built for our +exclusive use out of old planks. Our dwelling was covered with pieces +of foreign matting that had come from the Antilles packed about some +boxes of coffee. The sunbeams pierced the roof, which was of a coarse +straw-colored material, and the warm breeze that stirred the leaves of +the trees about us made the sunlight dance as it fell upon our faces +and aprons. (During at least two summers it had been our favorite +amusement to build, in isolated nooks, houses like the one described +in Robinson Crusoe, and thus hidden away we would sit together and +chat.) In the story of the little girl who was bitten by the big +creature this phrase, "a very large fruit from the colonies," had +suddenly plunged me into a reverie. And I had a vision of trees, of +strange fruits, and of forests filled with marvelously colored birds. +Ah! how much those magical but disturbing words, "the colonies" +conveyed to me in my childhood. To me they meant at that time all +tropical and distant countries, which I invariably thought of as +filled with giant palms, exquisite flowers, strange black people and +great animals. Although my ideas were so confused I had an almost true +conception, amounting to an intuition, of their mournful splendor and +their enervating melancholy. + +I think that I saw a palm for the first time in an illustrated book +called the "Young Naturalists," by Madame Ulliac-Tremadeure; the book +was one of my New Year's gifts, and I read some parts of it upon New +Year's evening. (Green-house palms had not at that time been brought +to our little town.) + +The illustrator had placed two of these unfamiliar trees at the edge +of a sea-shore along which negroes were passing. Recently I was +curious enough to hunt in the little yellow, faded book for that +picture, and truly I wonder how that illustration had the power to +create the very least of my dreams unless it were that my immature +mind was already leavened by the memory of memories. + +"The colonies!" Ah! how can I give an adequate idea of all that awoke +in my mind at the sound of these words? A fruit from there, a bird or +a shell, had instantly the greatest charm for me. + +There were a number of things from the tropics in little Antoinette's +home: a parrot, birds of many colors in a cage, and collections of +shells and insects. In one of her mamma's bureau drawers I had seen +quaint necklaces of fragrant berries; in the garret, where we +sometimes rummaged, we found skins of animals and peculiar bags and +cases upon which could still be made out the names of towns in the +Antilles; and a faint tropical odor scented the entire house. + +Antoinette's garden, as I have said, was separated from ours by a very +low wall overgrown with roses and jasmine. And the very old +pomegranate tree growing there spread its branches into our yard, and +at the blooming season its coral-red petals were scattered upon our +grass. + +Often we spoke from one house to the other: + +"Can I come over and play with you?" I would ask. "Will your mamma +allow me?" + +"No, because I have been naughty and I am being punished." (That +happened very often.)--Such an answer always grieved me a great deal; +but I must confess that it was more on account of my disappointment +over the parrot and the tropical things than because of her +punishment. + +Little Antoinette had been born in the colonies, but, curiously +enough, she never seemed to value that fact, and they had very little +charm for her, indeed she scarcely remembered them. I would have given +everything I possessed in the world to have seen, if only for the +briefest time, one of those distant countries, inaccessible to me, as +I well knew. + +With a regret that was almost anguish I thought, alas! that in my life +as minister, live as long as I might, I would never, never see those +enchanting lands. + + + + + CHAPTER XV. + + + +I will now describe a game that gave Antoinette and me the greatest +pleasure during those two delicious summers. + +We pretended to be two caterpillars, and we would creep along the +ground upon our stomachs and our knees and hunt for leaves to eat. +After having done that for some time we played that we were very very +sleepy, and we would lie down in a corner under the trees and cover +our heads with our white aprons--we had become cocoons. We remained in +this condition for some time, and so thoroughly did we enter into the +role of insects in a state of metamorphosis, that any one listening +would have heard pass between us, in a tone of the utmost seriousness, +conversations of this nature: + +"Do you think that you will soon be able to fly?" + +"Oh yes! I'll be flying very soon; I feel them growing in my shoulders +now . . . they'll soon unfold." ("They" naturally referred to wings.) + +Finally we would wake up, stretch ourselves, and without saying +anything we conveyed by our manner our astonishment at the great +transformation in our condition. . . . + +Then suddenly we began to run lightly and very nimbly in our tiny +shoes; in our hands we held the corners of our pinafores which we +waved as if they were wings; we ran and ran, and chased each other, +and flew about making sharp and fantastic curves as we went. We +hastened from flower to flower and smelled all of them, and we +continually imitated the restlessness of giddy moths; we imagined too +that we were imitating their buzzing when we exclaimed: "Hou ou ou!" a +noise we made by filling the cheeks with air and puffing it out +quickly through the half-closed mouth. + + + + + CHAPTER XVI. + + + +The butterflies, the poor butterflies that have gone out of fashion in +these days, played, I am ashamed to say, a large part in my life +during my childhood, as did also the flies, beetles and lady-bugs and +all the insects that are found upon flowers and in the grass. Although +it gave me a great deal of pain to kill them, I was making a +collection of them, and I was almost always seen with a butterfly net +in my hand. Those flying about in our yard, that had strayed our way +from the country, were not very beautiful it must be confessed, but I +had the garden and woods of Limoise which all the summer long was a +hunting-ground ever full of surprises and wonders. + +But the caricatures by Topffer upon this subject made me thoughtful; +and when Lucette one day caught me with several butterflies in my hat, +and in her incomparably mocking voice called me, "Mr. Cryptogram," I +was much humiliated. + + + + + CHAPTER XVII. + + + +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. + + + + + CHAPTER XVIII. + + + +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. + + + + + CHAPTER XIX. + + + +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. + + + + + CHAPTER XX. + + + +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. + + + + + CHAPTER XXI. + + + +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. + + + + + CHAPTER XXII. + + + +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. + + + + + CHAPTER XXIII. + + + +"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. + + + + + CHAPTER XXIV. + + + +"And I beheld, and heard an angel flying through the midst of heaven, +saying with a loud voice, Woe, woe, woe, to the inhabiters of the +earth!" + +Besides reading the Bible with the family every evening, I read a +chapter from it each morning before rising. + +My Bible was a very small one, with exceedingly fine print. Pressed +between its pages were some flowers that I was very fond of; +especially was I of the spray of pink larkspur, which had the power of +bringing very distinctly before my mind's eye the stubble fields +(gleux) of the Island of Oleron where I had gathered it. + +I do not know exactly how to explain the word gleux, but it means the +stubble which remains after the grain is harvested, and those fields +of short pale yellow stalks that the autumn sun dries and turns a +bright golden. In these fields upon the Island, overrun by chirping +grasshoppers, late corn-flowers and white and pink larkspur come up, +grow very high, and blossom. + +And upon winter mornings, before beginning to read, I always looked at +the spray of flowers which still retained its delicate color, and +there appeared to me a vision of the Island, and I longed for the +summer time and for the warm and sunny fields of Oleron. + +"And I beheld, and heard an angel flying through the midst of heaven, +saying with a loud voice, Woe, woe, woe, to the inhabiters of the +earth! + +"And the fifth angel sounded, and I saw a star fall from heaven upon +the earth; and to him was given the key of the bottomless pit." + +When I read my Bible for myself, having then my choice of passages, I +either selected that grand portion of Genesis wherein the light is +separated from the darkness, or the visions and the marvels of +Revelation. I was fascinated by its imaginative poetry, so splendid +and yet so terrible, which has, in my opinion, never been equalled in +any other book of mankind. . . . The beasts with seven heads, the +signs in the heavens, the sound of the last trumpet were well-known +terrors that haunted and enchanted my imagination. + +In a book, a relic of my Huguenot ancestors, printed in the last +century, I had seen pictures of these things. It was a "History of the +Bible," and the weird pictures illustrating the visions of the Book of +Revelation, invariably, had dark backgrounds. My maternal grandmother +kept this precious book, which she had brought from the Island, under +lock and key in a cupboard in her room; and as it was still my habit +to go there at the sad hour of dusk, it was then that I usually asked +her to lend me the book, so that I might turn over its leaves as it +lay upon her lap. In the dim twilight until it was too dark to see, I +gazed at the multitude of winged angels who were flying rapidly under +the curtain of blackness which presaged the end of the world. The +heavens were darker than the earth, and in the midst of the great +cloud masses, there was visible the simple and terrifying triangle +that signified Jehovah. + + + + + CHAPTER XXV. + + + +Egypt, the Egypt of antiquity, at a later time, exercised a mysterious +fascination over me. I recognized a picture of it immediately, without +hesitation and astonishment, in an illustrated magazine. I saluted as +old acquaintances two gods with hawk heads that were cut in profile +upon a stone and placed at each end of a strangely depicted Zodiac, +and although I saw the picture for the first time upon an overcast +day, there came to me, and of that I am sure, a sudden impression of +great heat given out by a pitiless sun. + + + + + CHAPTER XXVI. + + + +During the winter following the departure of my brother, I passed many +of my leisure hours in his room painting the pictures in the "Voyage +to Polynesia" which he had given me. With great care I first colored +the flowers and the groups of birds. After that I painted the men. +When I came to color the two young Tahitian girls who were standing at +the edge of the sea (the illustrator had been inspired to depict them +as nymphs) I made them white, all white and pink like a pretty little +doll--I thought them very beautiful done so. + +It was reserved for me to learn later than their color is different, +and their charms quite otherwise. + +My ideas of beauty have changed a great deal since that time, and it +would have astonished me very much if I had then been told what faces +I was to find most charming in the strange course of my later life. +But almost all children are under the dominion of some fancy which +dies out when they become men and women. + +The majority of people, during the period of their innocence and +youth, similarly admire the same type; sweet, regular features, and +the fresh pink and white tints. Only at a later time does their +estimate of what constitutes beauty vary, then it accords with the +culture of their spirit, and especially does it follow in the wake of +their developing intelligence. + + + + + CHAPTER XXVII. + + + +I do not exactly remember at what period I started my museum which +absorbed so much of my time. Just above my Aunt Bertha's room there +was a tiny garret-chamber that I had taken possession of; the chief +charm of the place was the window that opened to the west, and +commanded a view of the ramparts and its old trees. The reddish spots +in the distance, that broke the uniform green of the meadows, were +herds of wandering oxen and cows. I had persuaded my mother to paper +this attic room, and she had covered its walls with a pinkish chamois +paper which is still there; she also put a what-not and some glass +cases there. In these latter I placed my butterflies which I looked +upon as rare specimens; I also arranged therein the birds'-nests that +I had found in the woods of Limoise; the shells I had gathered upon +the shores of the Island, and those others (brought from the colonies +at an early time by unknown ancestors) that I had found in the garret +at the bottom of old chests where they had lain for years and years, +given over to dust and darkness. + +I spent many tranquil hours in this retreat contemplating the tropical +mother-of-pearl shells, and trying to image to myself the strange +coasts from which they had come. + +A good old great uncle of mine, who was very fond of me, encouraged me +in these diversions. He was a physician, and in his youth he had lived +for a long time upon the coast of Africa; he had a collection of +natural history specimens almost as valuable and varied as any found +in a city museum. His wonderful things captivated me: the rare and +exquisite shells, amulets and wooden weapons that still retained their +exotic odor, with which I became so surfeited later, and indescribably +beautiful butterflies under glass enchanted me. + +He lived in our neighborhood and I visited him often. To get to his +cabinets, it was necessary to go through his garden where thorn-apples +and cacti grew abundantly, and where they kept a gray parrot, brought +from Gaboon, whose vocabulary consisted of words learnt from the +negroes. + +And when my old uncle spoke of Senegal, of Goree, and of Guinea, the +music of these names intoxicated me, and conveyed to me vaguely +something of the sad languor of the dark continent. My uncle predicted +that I would become a great naturalist,--but he was as mistaken as +were all those others who foretold my future; indeed he struck farther +from the centre than any one else; he did not understand that my +liking for natural history was no more than a temporary and erratic +excursion of my unformed mind; he could not know that the cold glass +and the formal, rigid arrangements of dead science had not power to +hold me for long. + + + + + CHAPTER XXVIII. + + + +In the meantime, alas! I had to spend many long and wearisome hours in +going through the form of studying my lessons. + +Topffer, who is the only real poet of school-boys, that genus so +misunderstood, divides us into three groups: first, those who are in +boarding schools; second, those who do all their studying at home at a +window which overlooks a gloomy courtyard containing a twisted old fig +tree; third, those who also study at home in a bright little room +whose window commands a view of the street. + +I belonged to that third class whom Topffer considers extraordinarily +privileged, and as likely, in consequence, to grow up into happy men. +My room was upon the first floor, and it opened into the street; it +had white curtains, and its green paper was embellished with bouquets +of white roses. Near the window was my work desk, and above it, upon a +book-shelf, was my very much neglected library. + +In fine weather I always opened this window, but I kept my venetian +blinds half-closed, so that I might look out without having my +idleness seen, and reported by a meddlesome neighbor. Morning and +evening I glanced to the end of the quiet street that stretched its +sunny length between the white country houses and lost itself among +the old trees growing beyond the ramparts. I could see from there the +occasional passers-by, all well known to me, the neighborhood cats +that prowled within doorways or upon house-tops, the swifts darting +about in the warm air, and the swallows skimming along the dusty +street. . . . Oh! how many hours have I spent at that window feeling +like a caged sparrow, my spirit filled with vague reverie; and +meantime my ink-blotted copy-book lay open before me, but no +inspiration would come, and the composition that I was engaged upon +got itself finished very laboriously,--often not at all. + +And before long I began to play tricks upon the pedestrians, a fatal +result of my idleness over which I often felt remorseful. + +I am bound to confess that my great friend Lucette was usually a +willing assistant in these pranks. Although now almost a young lady +sixteen or seventeen years of age, she was at times almost as much of +a child as I. "You must never tell any one!" she would say with an +irrepressible smile of mischief in her merry eyes (but I may tell now +after so many years have passed, now that the flowers of twenty +summers have bloomed upon her grave). + +Our pranks consisted of taking cherry stems, plum stones and any sort +of trash, and wrapping them neatly into white or pink paper parcels +that looked very attractive to the eye; we then threw these bundles +into the street and hid ourselves behind the shutters to see who +picked them up. + +Sometimes we would write letters, impertinent or incoherent ones, with +accompanying drawings to illustrate the text; these we addressed to +the different eccentric people in our neighborhood, and, with the aid +of a thread, we lowered them to the sidewalk at about the same time +these persons were in the habit of passing. . . . + +Oh! how merrily we laughed as we composed these hodge-podges of style! +With no one else have I ever laughed so heartily as with Lucette,--and +we usually roared over things that no one except ourselves could +possibly have considered funny. Over and above the bond of little +brother and grown sister there was between us a sympathy springing +from our appreciation of the ridiculous, and our notions of what +constituted fun were in complete accord. She was the sprightliest +person I ever knew, and sometimes a single word would start us to +laughing at our own or our neighbors' expense, until our sides ached +and we almost fell upon the floor. + +This part of my nature was not, I must confess, in harmony with the +gloomy reveries evoked by the pictures of the Book of Revelation, and +with my ascetic religious convictions. But I was already full of +strange contradictions. + +Poor little Lucette or Lucon (Lucon was the masculine for Lucette, and +I used to call her "My dear Lucon"); poor little Lucette was also one +of my professors, but one who caused me neither fear nor disgust. Like +"Mr. Ratin" she also kept a book wherein she would inscribe "good" or +"very good," and I showed it to my parents every evening. Until now I +have neglected to say that it had been one of her amusements to teach +me to play upon the piano; she taught me by stealth so that I might +surprise my parents by playing for them, upon the occasion of a family +celebration, the "Little Swiss Boy" or the "Rocks of St. Malo." The +result was she had been requested to go on with lessons that had had +such a favorable beginning, and my musical education was entrusted to +her until it came time for me to play the music of Chopin and Liszt. + +Painting and music were the only things I worked at industriously and +faithfully. + +My sister taught me painting; I do not, however, remember when I +commenced it, but it must have been very early in my life; it seems to +me that there was never a time when I was not able, with my pencil or +my brush, to express in some measure the odd fancies of my +imaginations. + + + + + CHAPTER XXIX. + + + +In my grandmother's room, at the bottom of the cupboard where she kept +"The History of the Bible," with the terrible pictures illustrating +the visions of Revelation, she had also several other precious relics. +In particular there was an old silver-clasped psalm book. It was +extremely tiny, like a toy-book, and in its day it must have been a +marvel of the printer's skill. It had been made in miniature thus they +told me, so that it could be easily hidden; at the time of the +persecutions our ancestors had often carried it about with them, +concealed in their clothing. There was also, in a paste-board box, a +bundle of letters written on parchment and marked Leyden or Amsterdam. +Those written between the years 1702 and 1710 were secured by a large +wax seal stamped with a count's coronet. + +They were letters of our Huguenot ancestors, who, at the revocation of +the Edict of Nantes, had quitted their country, their home and their +dear ones, rather than abjure their faith. The letters had been +written to an old grandfather, a man too aged to go the way of the +exile, who was able, for some inexplicable reason, to remain +unmolested in his retreat upon the Island of Oleron. The letters +testified to the fact that the exiles had been submissive and +respectful towards him to a degree unknown in our day; the wanderers +wrote asking his advice or his consent before undertaking anything,-- +they even asked whether they might wear a certain wig which was +fashionable in Amsterdam at that time. They spoke of their troubles, +but without murmuring over them, with a truly Christian resignation; +their goods had been confiscated; they were obliged to follow +uncongenial trades in order to maintain themselves; and they hoped, +they said, with the aid of God always to make enough to keep their +children from starving. + +Together with the respect that these letters inspired, they had also +the charm of age; it was a novel experience to enter into the life of +a bygone time, to know the inmost thoughts of those who had lived a +century and a half before me. And as I read them I was filled with +indignation against the Roman Church and Papal Rome, sovereign during +the many past centuries.--Surely it was she who was designated, in my +opinion at any rate, in that wonderful prophecy contained in +Revelation: "And the beast is a City, and its seven heads are Seven +Hills on which the woman sitteth." + +My grandmother, always so austere and upright looking in her black +clothes, a type of a Huguenot woman, had been fearful for her own +safety during the Restoration, and although she never spoke of it, we +felt that she must have very depressing memories of that time. + +And upon the Island, in the shade of a bit of woodland that was +encircled by a wall, I had seen the place where slept those of my +ancestors who had been excluded from the cemeteries because they had +died in the Protestant faith. + +How could I be anything but faithful with such a past? And it is +certain that had the Inquisition been revived in my childhood, I would +have suffered martyrdom joyfully, like one filled to overflowing with +the spirit of God. + +My faith was a faith that kept watch upon the theological errors of +the time, and I did not know the resignation felt by my ancestors; in +spite of my distaste for reading I often plunged into books of +religious controversy; I knew by heart the many passages from the +Fathers and the decisions of the first councils; I could have +discussed the dogmas of the church like a doctor of divinity, and I +considered my arguments against the papacy very shrewd. + +But notwithstanding my fervor a distaste for all of these religious +things would often take possession of me; sometimes at church +especially where the gray light fell upon me and chilled me I felt it +most. The awful tediousness of some of the Sunday sermons; the +emptiness of the prayers, written in advance and spoken with +conventional unctuous voice, and gestures to suit; and the apathy of +the people who, dressed out in their best, came to listen,--how early +I divined its hollowness,--and how deep was my disappointment, and how +cruel the disillusionment--oh! the disheartening formalism of it all! +The very appearance of the church disconcerted me: it was a new +cityfied one, meant to be pretty without, however, meaning to be too +much so; I especially recall certain little efforts at wall decoration +which I held in the greatest abomination, and shuddered when I looked +at. It was that disgust in little which I experienced in so great a +degree when later I attended those Paris churches that strive so for +elegance, where one is met at the door by ushers whose shoulders are +tricked out with knots of ribbon. . . . Oh! for the congregation of +Cevennes! Oh! for the preachers of the wilderness! + +Such little things as I have mentioned did not shake my faith which +seemed as solid as a house built upon a rock; but doubtless they made +the first imperceptible crevice through which, drop by drop, oozed the +melting ice-cold water. + +Where I still knew true meditation, and felt the deep sweet peace one +should feel in the house of God was in an old church in the village of +St. Pierre Oleron; my great grandfather Samuel had, at the time of the +persecutions, worshipped and prayed there, and my mother had also +attended it during her girlhood days. . . . I also loved those little +country churches to which we sometimes went on Sunday in the summer +time: they were generally old and had simple whitewashed walls. They +were built any where and every where, in a corner of a wheat field +with wild flowers growing all about them; or in more retired places, +in the centre of some enclosure at the far end of an avenue of old +trees. The Catholics have nothing, in my opinion, which surpasses in +religious charm these humble little sanctuaries of our Protestant +ancestors--not even do their most exquisite stone chapels hidden away +in the depth of the Breton woods, that at a later time I learned to +admire so much, touch me so deeply. + +I still held fast to my determination to become a minister; it still +seemed to me that that was my duty. I had pledged myself, in my +prayers I had given my word to God. How could I therefore break my +vow? + +But when my young mind busied itself with thoughts of the future, more +and more veiled from me by an impenetrable darkness, my preference was +for a church which should be a little isolated from the noisy world, +for one where the faith of my congregation should ever remain simple, +for one receiving its consecration from a long past of prayers and +sincerest worship. + +It would be in the Island of Oleron perhaps! + +Yes; there, surrounded upon every side by the memories of my Huguenot +ancestors, I could look forward without dread, indeed with much +contentment, to a life dedicated to the service of the Lord. + + + + + CHAPTER XXX. + + + +My brother had arrived at the Delightful Island. His first letter +dated from there was a very long one, it was written on thin paper +that had been stained a light yellow by the sea, for it had been upon +its way four months. + +It was a great event in our family, and I still recall that as my +father and mother broke its seal, I sprang joyously up the stairs, two +steps at a time, in my haste to reach the second floor and call my +grandmother and aunts from their rooms. + +Inside the plump-feeling envelope, which was covered over with South +American stamps, there was a note for me, and enclosed in this I found +a pressed flower, a sort of five-petalled star which, though somewhat +faded, was still pink. The flower, my brother wrote, was from a shrub +that had taken root and blossomed beside his window, almost within his +Tahitian hut, which was actually invaded by the luxuriant vegetation +of the region. Oh! with what deep emotion;--with what avidity, if I +may express it thus, did I gaze at and touch the periwinkle which was +almost a fresh and living part of that unknown and distant land, of +that voluptuous nature. + +Then I pressed it again with so much care that I possess it intact to +this day. + +And after many years, when I made a pilgrimage to the humble dwelling +in which my brother lived during his stay in Tahiti, I saw that the +shady garden surrounding it was rosy with these periwinkles; they had +even pushed their way over the threshold of the door to blossom within +the deserted cabin. + + + + + CHAPTER XXXI. + + + +After my ninth birthday my parents, for a time, spoke of putting me +into boarding-school, so that I might become habituated to the harder +ways of life, and since the matter was talked over by all the members +of the family, I went about for several days feeling as if I were on +the eve of being sent to prison, for I imagined that a boarding-school +had high walls and windows guarded by iron bars. + +But, upon reflection, they considered that I was too frail and +delicate a human plant to be thrown in contact with those others of my +kind who, in all probability, would play roughly, and have bad +manners; they concluded, therefore, to keep me at home a little +longer. + +At any rate I was delivered from "Mr. Ratin." The old professor, +rotund of figure and kind of manner, who succeeded him, was less +distasteful to me, but I made just as little progress under his care. +In the afternoon, at about the time for his arrival, I would hastily +begin to prepare my lessons. I was then usually to be found at my +window, hidden behind the venetian blinds, with my book open at the +page containing the lesson; and when I saw him come into view at the +turning near the bottom of the street I commenced to study it. + +And generally by the time he arrived I knew enough to receive, if not +to merit, a "pretty good," a mark over which I did not grumble. + +I had also my English professor who came to me every morning,--and +whom I nicknamed Aristogiton (I do not now recall why). Following the +Robertson method, he had me paraphrase the history of Sultan Mahmoud. +Outside of that, the only thing that I am sure of is that I +accomplished nothing, absolutely nothing, less than nothing; but he +had the good taste not to growl at me, and in consequence I have an +almost affectionate remembrance of him. + +During the extreme heat of the summer days it was my custom to study +in the yard; I took my ink-stained copy and lesson books and spread +them upon a table that stood in the summer house made shady by the +vines and honeysuckles that grew over it. And when I was nicely +settled there I felt that I might idle to my heart's content. From +behind the lattice-work, green with trellised vines, I kept a lookout +in order to see any danger that threatened in the distance. . . . I +was always careful to bring with me to this retreat a quantity of +cherries and grapes, whichever happened to be in season, and truly I +could have passed there hours of the most delicious reverie but for +the remorse that tormented me almost every moment, a remorse born of +the fact that I was not busying myself with my lessons. + +Through the foliage I saw, close to me, the cool-looking pond with its +tiny grottoes which, since my brother's departure, I almost +worshipped. The little fountain in the centre stirred the waters and +made the sunlight that fell on its surface dance joyously; and the +sun's rays pierced the green verdure surrounding me--I seemed to be in +the midst of luminous water that quivered all about me with a +ceaseless motion. + +My arbor was a shady little retreat that gave me a complete illusion +of country; from the far side of the old wall came the song of the +tropical birds belonging to Antoinette's mother, and I heard the +rollicking warble and twitter of the swallows perched on the house- +top, and the chirp of the common sparrows as they flew about among the +trees in the garden. + +Sometimes I would throw myself face-upward full length upon the green +bench that was there, and through the tasselled honeysuckle I had a +view of the white clouds as they sailed across the blue of the sky. +There, too, I was initiated into the habits of the mosquitos who all +day long poised themselves tremblingly, by means of their long legs, +upon the leaves. And often I concentrated all my attention upon the +old wall where the insects acted out their tragical drama: the cunning +spider would come suddenly from his nook and ensnare in his web the +heedless little insects,--with the aid of a straw, I was usually able +to deliver them from their peril. + +I have forgotten to mention that I had, for companion, an old cat +called Suprematie, who had been my faithful and beloved friend since +infancy. + +Suprematie knew at what hour he would find me there, and he used to +slip in quietly upon the tips of his velvet paws; he never stretched +himself beside me without first looking at me questioningly. + +The poor creature was very homely; he was marked queerly upon only one +side of his body; moreover, in a cruel accident he had twisted his +tail, and it hung down at a right angle. He was the subject of +Lucette's continual mockery, for she had a lovely Angora cat that had +usurped Suprematie's place in her affections. It was my habit to run +out to see her when she came to inquire after the members of my +family; she rarely failed to add, with a funny air of concern, which +made me burst out laughing in spite of myself: "And your horror of a +cat, is he in good health, my dear?" + + + + + CHAPTER XXXII. + + + +During all this time my museum made great progress, and it soon became +necessary for me to have some new shelves put up. + +My great uncle continued to take a very deep interest in my taste for +natural history, and among his shells he found a number of duplicates, +and these he presented to me. With indefatigable patience he taught me +the scientific classifications of Cuvier, Linne, Lamarck or +Bruguieres, and I was astonished at the attention with which I +listened to him. + +In a very old little desk, that was a part of the furniture of my +museum, I had a copy-book into which I copied, from uncle's notes, and +numbered with the greatest care, the name of the species, genus, +family and class of each shell,--also the place of its origin. And +there by the dim light that fell upon the desk, in the silence of that +little retreat so high above the street, surrounded with objects what +had come from distant corners of the earth and from the depths of the +sea, when my mind wandered, and I became fatigued because of the +mysterious differences in the forms of animals, and because of the +infinite variety of shells, with what emotion I wrote down in my book, +opposite the name of a Spirifer or a Terebratula, such enchanting +words as these: "Eastern coast of Africa," "coast of Guinea," "Indian +Ocean." + +I recall that in this same museum I experienced, one afternoon in +March, a peculiar feeling indicative of my tendency towards reaction, +that later, at certain periods of self-abandonment, caused me to seek +the rough and uncouth society of sailors, and made me revel in noise +and change and gayety. + +It was Mardi-Gras time. At sundown I had gone out with my father to +see the masqueraders who were in the streets; and having returned +rather early I went immediately to my attic-room to classify some +shells. But the noise of the revellers and the clashing of their +tambourines reached even to the retreat where I was occupying myself +with scientific matters, and the sounds awakened in me a feeling of +inexpressible sadness. It was the same emotion, greatly intensified, +that I had when I listened, of winter evenings, to the old cake +vendor, and heard her voice die away into those far-off squalid +streets near the harbor. I experienced an unexpected anguish very +difficult to define in words. I had a vague impression, which was the +cause of my suffering, that I was imprisoned; and for the moment, I +thought that my liking for dry classifications and nature study shut +me away from the little boys of every age who were in the streets +below mingling with the sailors, more childish than they, who tricked +out in dreadful masks ran and frollicked and sang coarse songs. It +goes without saying that I had no desire to be one of them; the very +idea of jostling against them filled me with distaste, and I disdained +their rude sport. And I sincerely felt that it was better for me to be +where I was, occupied with putting the many-colored family of the +Purpura and the twenty-three varieties of the Gastropoda in order. + +But nevertheless the gay and merry people in the street troubled me +strangely. And, as was usual with me when I felt distressed, I went +down to look for my mother for the purpose of begging her to come up +to keep me company. Astonished at my request (for I scarcely ever +asked any one into my den), astonished especially by my anxious +manner, she said with an air of pleasantry that it was silly for a boy +of ten to be afraid to stay alone; but she consented to return with +me, and when there she seated herself close to me and occupied herself +with a piece of embroidery. Oh! how reassuring was her sweet and +darling presence! I returned to my task without concerning myself +further about the noise of the maskers, and as I worked I glanced up +now and again to look at her beautiful profile cut in silhouette, +because of the darkness without, upon my tiny window pane. + + + + + CHAPTER XXXIII. + + + +I am surprised that I cannot recall whether my desire to become a +minister transformed itself into a wish to lead the more militant life +of missionary, by a slow process or suddenly. + +It seems to me that the change must have come at a very early period. +For a long time I had taken an interest in Protestant missions, +especially in those established in Southern Africa, among the +Bassoutos. During my childhood we subscribed for the "Messenger," a +monthly journal that had for frontispiece an interesting picture +which, very early in my life, made a forcible impression upon me. + +This picture held a higher place in my regard than those of which I +have already spoken, but by no means because of its execution, its +color or background. It represented an impossible pine tree growing at +the edge of a sea, behind which a resplendent sun was setting, and, at +the foot of the tree, there was a young savage who was watching the +approach of a ship, from a distant point upon the horizon, that was +bringing to him the glad tidings of Salvation. + +Early in my life, when from the warm depths of my soft and downy nest, +I looked out upon a yet formless world, that picture evoked many +dreams; later when I was more capable of appreciating the extreme +crudity of the design, that huge sun, half-engulfed in the sea, and +that tiny mission boat sailing towards the unknown shores still had a +very great charm for me. + +Now when they questioned me I replied: "I expect to be a missionary." +But I spoke in a low voice, in the voice of one not sure of himself, +and I felt that they no longer believed in my asseverations. Even my +mother, when she heard my response, smiled sadly. + +Doubtless my answer exceeded what she expected from my faith;-- +probably she said to herself that it was never to be; no doubt she +thought that I would become something very different, in all +probability something less desirable, that it was impossible at this +time to foresee. + +This determination of mine to become a missionary seemed to solve my +every problem. It would mean long voyages and an adventurous, perilous +life,--but journeys would be undertaken in the service of the Lord, +and the dangers endured for His blessed cause. That solution brought +me great tranquillity for a long time. + +After having thus won peace for my religious conscience, I feared to +dwell upon the thought lest it should disclose some unexpected +weaknesses. But still the chill waters of commonplace sermons, with +their endless repetitions and stock phrases, continued to flow over +and wash away my early faith. My shrinking from life increased rather +than diminished. There seemed to hang between me and the years to come +a great curtain whose heavy folds it was impossible for me to lift. + + + + + CHAPTER XXXIV. + + + +In preceding chapters I have not said much about that Limoise which +was the scene of my initiation into nature and its wonders. My entire +childhood is intimately connected with that little corner of the +world, with its ancient forests of oak trees, and its rocky moorlands +covered here and there with a carpet of wild thyme and heather. + +For ten or twelve glorious summers I went there to spend my Thursday +holidays, and I dreamed of it during the dreary intervening days of +study. + +In May our friends the D-----s and Lucette went to their country home +and remained until vintage time, usually until after the first October +frost,--and regularly every Wednesday evening I was taken there. + +Nothing in my estimation was so delightful as that journey to Limoise. +We scarcely ever went in a carriage, for it was not more than three +and a half miles distant; to me, however, it seemed very far, almost +lost in the woods. It lay toward the south, in the direction of those +distant, sunny lands I loved to think of. (I would have found it less +charming had it been towards the north.) + +Every Wednesday evening, at sunset, the hour therefore varying with +the month, I left home accompanied by Lucette's elder brother, a grown +boy of eighteen or twenty, who seemed to me a man of mature age. As +far as I was able I tried to keep pace with him, and, in consequence, +I was obliged to go more rapidly than when I walked with my father and +sister; we went through the quiet streets lying near the ramparts, and +passed the sailors' old barracks, the sounds of whose bugles and drums +reached as far as my attic museum when the south wind blew; then we +passed through the fortifications by the most ancient of its gray +gates,--a gate almost abandoned, and used now principally by peasants +with flocks of sheep and droves of cattle,--and finally we arrived at +the road that led to the river. + +A mile and a half of straight road stretched before us, and this path +lay between stunted old trees yellow with lichens whose branches were +blown to the left by the force of the sea-winds that almost constantly +came from the west, sweeping over the broad and level meadows that lay +between us and the ocean. + +To those who have a conventionalized idea of country beauty, and to +whom a charming landscape means a river winding its way between +poplars, or a mountain crowned by an old castle, this level road would +look very ugly. + +But I found it exquisite in spite of its straight lines. Upon the left +there was nothing to be seen but grassy meadow land over which herds +of cattle strayed. And before us, in the distance, something that +resembled a line of ramparts shut in the plains sadly: it was the edge +of a rocky plateau at whose base flowed the river. The far bank of +this river was higher than the side that we were on, and was, in some +respects, of a different character, but for the most part it was as +flat and monotonous. And it is just this sameness that has so much +charm for me, an attraction appreciated seemingly by few others. The +great level plains with their calm and tranquil straight lines are +deeply and profoundly inspiring. + +There is nothing in our vicinity that I love any better than the old +road; perhaps I have an affection for it because during my school-boy +days I built so many castles-in-Spain upon those flat plains where, +from time to time, I find them again. It is one of the few spots that +has not been disfigured by factories, docks and railways. It seems a +spot that belongs peculiarly to me, and certainly no one has the power +to contest my spiritual right to it. + +The sum of the charm of the sensuous world dwells in us, is an +emanation from ourselves; it is we who diffuse it, each person for +himself according to his power, and we have it back again in the +measure of our out-giving. But I did not comprehend early enough the +deep meaning of this well-known truth. . . . During my childhood and +youth the charm seemed to reside in the thing itself, to have its +habitation in the old walls and the honeysuckle of my garden; I +thought it lay along the sandy shores of the Island and upon the +grassy meadows and rocky moorland about me. Later on, in pouring out +my admiration every where, as I did, I drew too heavily upon the well- +spring--I exhausted it at the source. And, alas! I find the land of my +childhood, to which I will no doubt return to die, changed and +shrunken, and only for a moment, in certain spots, am I able to +recreate the illusions I have lost;--there I am for the most part +weighed down by the crushing memories of bygone days. . . . + +As I was saying before my digression, every Wednesday evening I walked +with a light and joyous step along the road that led towards those +distant rocks lying at the boundary of the plains, I went gayly +towards that region of oak trees and mossy stones in which Limoise was +situated,--my imagination greatly magnified it in those days. + +The river we had to cross was at the end of the straight avenue of +lichened trees so harried by the west winds. The river was very +changeable, being subject to the tides and to all the moods of the +neighboring ocean. We crossed in a ferry-boat or a yawl, always having +for our oarsmen old sailors with bleached beards and sunburnt faces +whom we had known from earliest childhood. + +When we reached the other bank, the rocky one, I always had a curious +optical illusion: it seemed to me that the town from which we had +come, and whose gray ramparts we still could see, suddenly drew very +far away from us, for in my young head distances exaggerated +themselves strangely. Upon this side all was different, the soil, the +grass, the wild flowers and even the butterflies that hovered over +them; nothing here was like those approaches to our town in whose fens +and meadows I took my daily walk. And the differences, which perhaps +others would not have noticed, thrilled and charmed me, for it had +been my habit to spend, perhaps to waste, my time in observing the +infinitesimally small things in nature, and I had often lost myself in +contemplation of the lowliest mosses. Even the twilights of these +Wednesday evenings had about them something distinctive and peculiar +which I cannot express; generally we reached the far shore just as the +sun was setting, and we watched it, from the height of the lonely +plateau, disappear behind the tall meadow-grass through which we had +but newly come, and as it sunk its great ruddy dish seemed uncommonly +large. + +After crossing the river we turned off the high-road and took an +unfrequented way that led through a region called "Chaumes," a very +beautiful place at that time but horribly profaned to-day. + +"Chaumes" lay at the entrance of a village whose ancient church we saw +in the distance. As it was public property it had kept intact its +native wildness. This "Chaumes" was a sort of table-land composed of a +single stone, and this rock, which undulated slightly, was covered +with a carpet of short, dry fragrant plants that snapped under our +feet; and a whole world of tiny gayly-colored butterflies and tinier +moths fluttered among the rare and delicate flowers growing there. + +Sometimes we passed a flock of sheep guarded by a shepherd much more +countrified looking and tanned than those seen in the meadows about +our town. Lonely and sun-scorched, Chaumes seemed to me the very +threshold of Limoise: it had its very odor, the mingled scent of wild +thyme and sweet marjoram. + +At the end of the rocky moor was the hamlet of Frelin. I love this +name of Frelin, for I think of it as being derived from those large +and fierce hornets (frelons) that build their nests in the heart of a +certain species of oak tree found in the forests of Limoise; to get +rid of these pests it is necessary, in the springtime, to build great +fires around the infested trees. This hamlet was composed of three or +four cottages. They were all low, as is the custom of our country, and +they were old, very old and gray; above the little rounded doorways +were half-effaced ornamental Gothic scrolls and blazonments. I +scarcely ever saw them except at dusk, as twilight was falling, and +the hour and the quaint little houses themselves awoke in me an +appreciation of the mystery of their past; above all these humble +dwellings attested to the antiquity of this rocky ground, so much +older than the meadows of our town which had been won from the sea, +and where nothing that dates before the time to Louis XIV is to be +found. + +As soon as we left Frelin I commenced to look eagerly along the path +ahead of me, for after that we usually spied Lucette, either afoot or +in a carriage, coming to meet us. As soon as I caught a glimpse of her +I would run ahead to embrace her. + +On our way through the village we passed the tiny church, a wonder of +the twelfth century, built in the rarest and most ancient Romanesque +style;--and then as the shadows of evening deepened we saw, in the +semi-darkness before us, something that had the form of tall dark +legions: it was the forest of Limoise, composed almost wholly of +evergreen oaks, whose foliage is very dark and sombre. We then came +into the road leading directly to the house; on our way we passed the +well where the patient, thirsty cattle awaited their turn to drink. +And finally we opened the little old gate, and traversed the first +grassy courtyard which the shadowing trees, a century old, plunged +into almost total darkness. + +The house lay between this courtyard and a large uncultivated garden +that extended to the edge of the oak forest. As we entered the ancient +dwelling, with its whitewashed walls and old-fashioned wainscoting, I +always looked eagerly for my butterfly-net that was usually to be +found hanging in the place where I had left it, ready for the next +day's chase. + +After dinner it was our custom to go to the foot of the garden, and +there we sat in an arbor that was built against the old wall +encircling the yard,--this bower faced away from the unfriendly +darkness of the woods where the owls hooted. And while we were seated +in the beautiful, mild, star-bespangled night, suddenly upon the air, +musical with the chirping of myriad crickets, there was heard the +tolling of a bell,--heard very clearly by us although it came from +afar off,--it was the church bell in the village announcing the +evening service. + +Oh! the vesper bell of Enchillais heard in that beautiful garden long +ago! Oh! the sound of that bell, a little cracked but still silvery, +like the once beautiful voices of very old people which still retain +something of their sweetness. What charm of past times, and half sad +meditations of peaceful death, were awakened by that music which +spread itself into the limpid darkness of the surrounding country! And +we heard the bell chiming for a long time, but its sound reached us +fitfully; one while it seemed to be near, and then again it seemed far +away, as it obeyed the will of the soft night wind that was stirring. +I bethought me of all those who, on their lonely farms, were listening +to it; I bethought me, too, of all the unpeopled places round about +where it would be heard by no one, and a shudder passed through me at +the thought of the near-by forest, where the sweet vibrations of the +bell would die. + +The municipal council, composed of very superior spirits, after having +first put its everlasting tri-colored flag upon the steeple of the +little Roman Catholic Church, then suppressed its vesper bell. Its day +is done; and we shall never again, upon summer evenings, hear that +call to prayers. + +Going to bed there was always a very enlivening proceeding, especially +when there was the prospect of a whole Thursday of play before me. I +would, I am sure, have been very much afraid in the guest chamber, +which was on the ground floor of the great, isolated house; but until +my twelfth year I slept on the floor above, in the spacious room +occupied by Lucette's mother;--with the aid of screens they had made +for me a little room of my own. In this retreat there was a book-case +with glass doors that belonged to the time of Louis XIV; this was +filled with treatises, a century old, upon navigation, and with +sailors' log-books that had not been opened for a hundred years. Tiny, +scarce visible butterflies, that entered by the open windows, were to +be found here all summer long, sleeping with extended wings upon the +whitewashed walls. And often the most exciting incident of the day +happened just as I was falling asleep; sometimes then an unwelcome bat +found his way into the room and circled wildly about the lighted +candles; or an enormous moth buzzed in and we would chase him with a +cobweb-broom. Or again a storm descended upon us and the great trees +lashed their branches against the house, and the old shutters slammed +back and forth, and we waked with a start. + + + + + CHAPTER XXXV. + + + +Now comes the apparition of another little friend who stood very high +in my childish favor. As nearly as I can remember I became acquainted +with her when I was eleven; Antoinette had left the country; Veronica +was forgotten. + +Her name was Jeanne, and she was the youngest member of a naval +officer's family, that like the D-----s had been bound up in +friendship with ours for more than a century. As she was two or three +years younger than I, I had at first taken but little notice of her-- +probably I thought her too babyish. + +Her face was as droll as a little kitten's, and it was impossible to +tell from the pinched up features whether she would become pretty or +ugly; but she had a certain grace, and when she was eight or nine +years old her face became very sweet and charming. She was very +roguish, and as friendly as I was diffident; and as she darted about +in those childish dances we sometimes had in the evenings, and from +which I held myself aloof, she seemed to me the extreme of worldly +elegance and coquetry. + +But in spite of the great intimacy between our families, it was +evident that her parents looked upon our friendship with disfavor, +they probably thought it unseemly that she had chosen a boy for her +companion. This knowledge caused me much suffering, and the +impressions of my childhood were so vivid and persistent that I did +not, until many years had passed, until I became quite a grown youth, +pardon her father and mother the humiliation they had caused me. + +It therefore resulted that my desire to play with her increased +greatly. And she, knowing this, was as perverse as a princess in a +fairy tale; she laughed mercilessly at my timid ways, at my awkward +manners and my ungraceful fashion of entering the parlor; there was +kept up between us a constant interchange of playful raillery, an oral +stream of inimitable pleasantry. + +When I was invited to spend the day with her the prospect gave me the +greatest joy, but the aftertaste of the visit was generally bitter, +for usually I committed some mortifying blunder in that family where I +felt myself so misunderstood. Every time I wished to have Jeanne at my +house for dinner it was necessary for my aunt Bertha, who was a person +of authority in the eyes of Jeanne's parents, to arrange the matter +for me. + +Upon one occasion when little Jeanne returned from Paris she related +to me the story of the "Donkey's Skin," which she had seen acted at +the theatre in the city. + +Her time so spent was not lost, for the "Donkey's Skin" was destined +to occupy a prominent place in my life during the next four or five +years, the hours that I wasted upon it were more preciously squandered +than were any others in my life. + +Together we conceived the idea of mounting the piece upon the stage of +my miniature theatre. That play of the "Donkey's Skin" brought us +together very often. And little by little the project assumed gigantic +proportions; it grew as the months sped, and amused us in ever +increasing measure; indeed, in proportion to the degree of perfection +to which we were able to bring our conception did we enjoy it. We +manufactured fantastic decorations; we dressed, so that they might +take part in the processions, innumerable little dolls. It will be +necessary for me to speak often of that fairy spectacle which was one +of the important things of my childhood. + +And even after Jeanne tired of it I worked over it alone, and I fairly +outdid myself by undertaking enterprises that seemed grand to me, +such, for instance, as my efforts to represent moonlight, great +conflagrations and storms. I also made marvellous palaces and gardens +wonderful as Aladdin's. All my dreams of enchanted regions, of strange +tropical luxuries, which I later found in the distant corners of the +world, took form in the little play of the "Donkey's Skin." Leaving +out the mystical experiences at the commencement of my life, I can +affirm that almost all my fancies had their essay on that tiny stage. +I was nearly fifteen when the last decorations, unfinished ones, were +laid away forever in the cardboard box that served them for a peaceful +tomb. + +And since I have anticipated their future I will say in conclusion +that in later years, when Jeanne had grown into a beautiful woman, +upon numerous occasions we have planned to open the box where our +little dolls are sleeping. But we live our life so rapidly that we +seem never to find the time, nor will we, I fear, ever find it. + +Later our children may,--or who can tell, perhaps our grandchildren! +Upon some future day, when we are forgotten, our unknown descendants +in ferreting to the bottom of old cupboards will be astonished to find +there numberless little creatures, nymphs, fairies and genii, all +dressed by our hands. + + + + + CHAPTER XXXVI. + + + +It is said that many children who live in the central provinces, away +from the ocean, have a great longing to see it. I who had never been +away from the monotonous country surrounding us looked forward eagerly +to seeing the mountains. + +I tried to imagine them; I had seen pictures of several, and I had +even painted them for the "Donkey's Skin." My sister, when she visited +Lake Lucerne, sent me a description of the mountains, and wrote me +long letters about them, such as are seldom addressed to a child of my +age. And my ideas were further extended by some photographs of +glaciers that my sister brought me for my magic-lantern. I desired +with all my heart to see the mountains themselves. + +One day, as if in answer to my wish, there came a letter that created +quite a stir in our house. It was from a first cousin of my father, +who had at one time regarded my father with a brotherly love, but for +thirty years, for some reason unknown to me, this cousin had not +written or given any sign of life. + +At the time of my birth, all talk of him had ceased in our family, and +I was ignorant of his existence. And now he wrote and begged that the +old bond might be renewed; he was living, he said, in a little +southern village in the heart of the Swiss Mountains. He announced +that he had two sons and a daughter about the age of my brother and +sister. His letter was very affectionate, and my father responded to +it in like manner and told his cousin all about us, his three +children. + +The correspondence having continued, it was arranged that I should +spend my next vacation with my relatives; my sister was to take me +there and play the part of mother as she had done during our visit to +the Island. + +The south, the mountains, this sudden extension of my horizon, the +cousins who seemed literally to have fallen from the sky, became the +subject of my constant reveries until the month of August, the time +set for our departure. + + + + + CHAPTER XXXVII. + + + + +Little Jeanne had come over to spend the day at our house; it was at +the end of May during that spring in which my expectations were so +great--I was twelve years old at the time. All the afternoon we +rehearsed with our tiny jointed china dolls, and painted scenery, we +had in fact been busy with the "Donkey's Skin,"--but with a revised +and grand version of it, and we had about us a great confusion of +paints, brushes, pieces of cardboard, gilt paper and bits of gauze. +When it came time for us to go down into the dining-room we stored our +precious work away in a large box that was consecrated to it from that +day forth--the box was a new one made of pine, and it had a +penetrating, resinous odor. + +After our dinner, at dusk, we were taken out for a walk. But, to my +surprise and sorrow, we found it chilly and the sky was overcast, and +every where there was a sort of mist that recalled winter to my mind. +Instead of going beyond the town, to the places usually frequented by +pedestrians, we went towards the Marine Garden, a much prettier and +more suitable walk, but one usually deserted after sunset. + +We went down the long straight street without meeting any one; as we +drew near the "Chapel of the Orphans" we heard those within chanting a +psalm. When that was finished a procession of little girls filed out. +They were dressed in white, and they looked very cold in their spring +muslins. After making a circuit of the lonely quarter, chanting +meanwhile a melancholy hymn, they noiselessly re-entered the chapel. +There was no one in the street to see them save ourselves, and the +thought came to me that neither was there any one in the gray heavens +above to see them; the overcast sky seemed as lonely as the solitary +street. That little band of orphaned children intensified my feeling +of sorrow and added to the disenchantment of the May night, and I had +a consciousness of the vanity of prayer, of the emptiness of all +things. + +In the Marine Garden my sadness increased. It was extremely cold, and +we shivered in our light spring wraps. There was not a single +promenader to be seen. The large chestnut trees all abloom and the +foliage, in the glory of its tender hue, formed a feathery green and +white avenue--emptiness was here too; all of this intertwined +magnificence of branch and flower, seen of no one, unfolded itself to +the indifferent sky that stretched above it cold and gray. And in the +long flower beds there was a profusion of roses, peonies and lilies +that seemed also to have mistaken the season, for they appeared to +shiver, as we did, in the chill twilight. + +I have found that the melancholy one sometimes feels in the springtime +usually transcends that felt in autumn, for the reason, doubtless, +that the former is so out of harmony with the promise of the season. + +The demoralized state into which I was thrown by everything about me +gave me a longing to play a boyish trick upon Jeanne. There came to me +a desire (one that I frequently felt) to have some sort of revenge +upon her, because her disposition was so much more mature and yet more +sprightly than mine. I induced her to lean over and smell the lovely +lilies, and while she was doing so I, by giving her head a very slight +push, buried her nose deep in the flowers and it became covered with +yellow pollen. She was indignant! And the thought that I had acted so +rudely tended to make the walk home a very painful one. + +The beautiful evenings of May! Had I not cherished memories of those +of preceding years, or had they in truth been like this one? Like this +one in the cold and lonely garden? Had they ended so miserably as did +this play-day with Jeanne? With a feeling of mortal weariness I said +to myself: "And is this all!" an exclamation which soon afterwards +became one of my most frequent unspoken reflections, a phrase indeed +that I might well have taken for my motto. + +When we returned I went to the wooden box to inspect our afternoon's +work, and as I did so I inhaled the balsamic odor that had impregnated +everything belonging to our theatre. For a long time after that, for a +year or two, perhaps longer, the odor of the pine box containing the +properties of the "Donkey's Skin" recalled vividly that May evening so +filled with poignant sorrow, which was one of the most singular +feelings of my childhood. Since I have come to man's estate I no +longer suffer from anguish that has no known cause, doubly hard to +endure because mysterious, I no longer feel as if my feet are treading +unfathomable depths in search of a firm bottom. I no longer suffer +without knowing why. No, such emotions belonged peculiarly to my +childhood, and this book could properly bear the title (a dangerous +one I well know): "A Journal of my extreme and inexplicable sorrows, +and some of the boyish pranks by which I diverted my mind from them." + + + + + CHAPTER XXXVIII. + + + +It was about this time that I installed myself in my aunt Claire's +room for the purpose of study, and there too I busied myself +manufacturing wonders for the "Donkey's Skin." I took possession of +the place as entirely as an army occupies a conquered country--I would +not admit the possibility of being in the way. + +My aunt Claire was the person who petted me most. And it was she who +was always so careful of my little things. She always looked after my +finery or anything uncommonly fragile, things that the least breath of +air would have blown away--such exquisitely delicate trifles, for +example, as the wings of a butterfly, or the bright scale of a beetle, +intended for the costumes of our nymphs and fairies--when I said to +her: "Will you please take care of this, dear auntie?" I felt that I +could be easy about it, for I knew that no one would be allowed to +touch it. + +One of the great attractions in her room was a bear that was used for +holding burnt-almonds; and I often visited the place for the sole +purpose of paying my respects to this animal. He was made of china and +he sat upon his hind legs in the corner of the mantelpiece. According +to a compact that I had with my aunt, every time that his head was +turned to the side (and I found it so several times during a day) it +meant that there was an almond or some other kind of candy for me. +When I had eaten this I straightened his head to indicate that I had +been there, and then I departed. + +Aunt Claire enjoyed helping us with the "Donkey's Skin"; she worked +enthusiastically over the costumes and each day I gave her some task. +She was especially skilful in devising hair for the fairies and +nymphs; she managed to fix upon their tiny heads, about as big as the +end of a little finger, blond wigs made of light silk thread, this +thread she twined upon the finest wires and thus she was able to twist +it into beautiful ringlets. + +Then when it became absolutely necessary for me to study my lessons, +in the feverish haste of the last half hour that I reserved for my +task, after having wasted my time in idleness of every sort, it was +aunt Claire who came to my rescue; she would open the large dictionary +and hunt up for me the unfamiliar words in the exercises and lessons. +She also took up the study of Greek in order to assist me with my +lessons in that language. When I studied my Greek I always led my aunt +Claire to the stairway and I sprawled there upon the steps, my feet +higher than my head; for two or three years that was the classic pose +I took for the study of the Iliad, or Xenophon's Cyropedia. + + + + + CHAPTER XXXIX. + + + +Thursday evening was a time of great rejoicing with me whenever a +terrible storm descended upon Limoise, and thus made it impossible for +me to return home that night. + +It happened occasionally; and since I had had the experience, I used +to hope that it might occur often, and especially did I wish for a +storm when I had failed to prepare my lessons. One inhuman professor +had instituted Thursday tasks, and it was necessary for me to drag my +text and copy-books with me to Limoise; my beloved holidays, spent in +the sweet open air, were overcast by their dark shadow. + +One evening at about eight o'clock the much desired storm broke upon +us with superb fury. Lucette and I were in the large drawing-room that +resounded with the noise of the thunder, and we felt none too safe +there. Its great wall-spaces were broken by only two or three old +engravings in ancient frames. Lucette, under her mother's direction, +was putting the finishing touches to a piece of needle work, and, on +the rather worn-out piano, I was playing, with the soft pedal down, +one of Rameau's dances; the old-fashioned music sounded exquisite to +me as it mingled with the noise of the great thunder claps. + +When Lucette's work was completed, she turned over the leaves of my +copy-book lying on the table. After she had examined it she gave me a +meaning look, intended only for my eyes, that said as plainly as a +look can that she knew I had neglected my task. Suddenly she asked: +"where did you leave your Duruy's 'History'?" + +My Duruy's "History"! Where indeed had I left it? It was a new book +with scarcely a blot in it. Great heavens! I had forgotten it and left +it out of doors at the far end of the garden in the most removed +asparagus bed. For my historical studies I had selected the asparagus +bed which was like a bit of copse, for the feathery green plants, past +their season, grew high and luxuriant; a hazel glen, leafy and +impenetrable, and as shady as a verdant grotto, was the spot I had +chosen for the more exacting and laborious work of Latin +versification. As this time I was scolded by Lucette's mother for my +great carelessness, we decided to go immediately and rescue the book. + +We organized a search party, and at the head of it went a servant who +carried a stable-lantern; Lucette and I walked behind him. Our feet +were protected from the wet ground by wooden shoes, and with much +difficulty we held over us a large umbrella that the wind constantly +turned inside out. + +Once outside I was no longer afraid; I opened my eyes wide and +listened with all my ears. Oh! how wonderful, and yet how sinister, +the end of the garden looked seen by those sudden and great flashes of +green light that shimmered and trembled about us from time to time, +and then left us blind in the blackness of the stormy night. And I +shall never forget the impression made upon me by the continual +crashing of the branches of the trees in the near-by oak forest. + +We found Duruy's "History" in the asparagus bed all water soaked and +mud bespattered. Before the storm the snails, exhilarated no doubt by +the promise of rain, had crawled over the book and they had left their +slimy, glistening traces upon it. + +Those small tracks remained on the book for a long time, preserved, +doubtless, by the paper cover that I put over them. They had the power +to recall a thousand things to me, thanks to that peculiarity of my +mind that associates the most dissimilar and incongruous images if +only once, for a single favorable moment, they have been accidentally +joined. + +And therefore the little, shining, zig-zag marks on the cover of Duruy +always brought to my mind Rameau's gay dance that I played on the +shrill old piano, only to have it drowned by the noise of the raging +storm; and the same little blotches also recall to me a vision that I +had that night (one, no doubt, born of an engraving by Teniers that +hung on the wall); there seemed to pass before my eyes little people +belonging to a bygone age who danced in the shade of a wood like that +of Limoise; the apparition awakened in me an appreciation of the +pastoral gayety of that time, a conception of the abandon and +joyousness of the picnickers who were dancing so merrily under the +spreading branches of the oak trees. + + + + + CHAPTER XL. + + + +And yet the return home from Limoise Thursday evenings would have had +a great charm but for the remorse I almost always felt because of +neglected duties. + +My friends took me as far as the river in the carriage, or I rode on a +donkey, or we walked. Once past the stony plateau on the south bank of +the river, and once over it and upon the home side I found my father +and sister awaiting me; I walked gayly beside them in the straight +path lying between the extensive meadows that led to our house. I went +at a brisk pace in my eagerness to see mamma, my aunts and our dear +home. + +When we entered the town, by the old disused gate, it was always dusk, +the dusk of a spring or summer night; as we passed the barracks we +heard the familiar drums and bugles sounding the hour for the sailors' +all-too-early bed. + +And when we arrived at the house I usually spied my beloved ones +(clothed in their black dresses) seated in the honeysuckle arbor at +the end of the yard, or they were sitting out under the stars. + +Or, if the others had gone in, I was sure to find aunt Bertha there +alone; she was a very independent person, and she dared defy even the +dew and evening chill. After kissing and embracing me she pretended to +smell of my clothes, and after sniffing a minute, to make me laugh, +she would say: "Ah! you smell of Limoise, my darling." + +And indeed I did have something of the fragrance of Limoise about me. +When I came from there I was always impregnated with the odor of wild +thyme and the other aromatic plants peculiar to that part of the +country. + + + + + CHAPTER XLI. + + + +Speaking of Limoise I will be vain enough to speak here of an act of +mine that I consider as brave as it was obedient, for it fell in with +a promise that I had given. + +It happened a short time before my departure for the south, before +that journey to the mountains with which my imagination was ever busy; +it occurred in the month of July following my twelfth birthday. + +One Wednesday, having started earlier than usual, so that I might +arrive at Limoise before nightfall, I begged those accompanying me to +go no farther than just beyond the town; I entreated them, for this +once, to allow me to make the journey alone as if I were a grown boy. + +As I was being ferried across the river I compelled myself to take +from my pocket the white silk handkerchief that I had promised to wear +about my neck to protect it from the cool breezes on the water; the +old weather-beaten sailors were looking at me and I felt unspeakably +ashamed as I tied the muffler around my neck. + +And at Chaumes, in that shadeless spot, a place always baked by the +sun, I fulfilled the pledge that had been exacted from me at my +departure. I opened a large sunshade!--oh! how my cheeks reddened and +how humiliated I felt when I was ridiculed by a little shepherd-boy +who, with head bared to the sun's rays, guarded his sheep. And my +agony increased when I arrived at the village and I saw four boys, who +had doubtless just come from school, look at me with astonishment. My +God! I felt as if I would faint. It was true courage which enabled me +to keep my promise at that moment. + +As they passed they stared hard as if to mock me for being afraid of +the sun. One muttered something that had little enough meaning, but +which I regarded as a mortal insult: "It is the Marquis of Carabas!" +he said, and then all began to laugh heartily. But notwithstanding, I +continued on my way with my parasol still open. I did not flinch nor +answer them, but the blood surged to my cheeks and hummed in my ears. + +In the time that followed there were many occasions when it was +necessary for me to pass upon my way without noticing the insults cast +at me by ignorant people; but I do not recall that their taunts caused +me any suffering. But my experience with the parasol! No, I am sure +that I have never accomplished any braver act that that. + +But I am convinced that it is unnecessary for me to seek any other +cause for my aversion to umbrellas, an aversion that followed me into +mature age. And I attribute to handkerchiefs and such things, and to +the excessive care my family took to stop up every chink through which +air might reach me, my later habit, in line with my tendency to +reactions, of exposing my breast to the burning rays of the sun, of +exposing myself to every kind of wind and weather. + + + + + CHAPTER XLII. + + + +With my head pressed against the glass in the door of the railway +coach that was going rapidly I continually asked my sister, who sat +opposite: + +"Are we in the mountains yet?" + +"Not yet," she would answer, still remembering the Alps vividly. "Not +yet, dear. Those are only high hills." + +The August day was warm and radiantly bright. We were in an express +train going south, on our way to visit those cousins whom we had never +seen. + +"Oh! but that one! See! See!" I exclaimed triumphantly, as my eyes +spied an elevation towering above others; it was one whose blue height +pierced the clear horizon. + +She leaned forward. + +"Ah!" she said, "that is a little more like a mountain, I must +confess,--but it isn't a very high one, only wait!" + +At the hotel, where we were obliged to remain until the following day, +everything interested us. I remember that night came suddenly, a night +of splendor, as we leaned upon the railing of the balcony leading from +our rooms, watching the shadows gather about the blue mountains and +listening to the chirping of the crickets. + +The next day, the third of our frequently interrupted journey, we +hired a funny little carriage to take us to the town, one much out of +the line of travel at that time, where our cousins lived. + +For five hours we rode through passes and defiles--for me they were +enchanted hours. Not only was there the novelty of the mountains, but +everything here was unlike our home surroundings. The soil and the +rocks were a bright red instead of, as in our village, a dazzling +white because of the underlying chalk beds. And at home everything was +flat and low, it seemed as if nothing there dared lift itself above +the dead level and break the uniformity of the plains. Here the +dwellings, of reddish hue like the rocks, and built with old gabled +ends and ancient turrets, were perched high up on the hill; the +peasants were very tanned, and they spoke a language I did not +understand; I noticed particularly that the women walked with a free +movement of the hips, unknown to the peasants of our country, as they +strode along carrying upon their heads sheaves of grain and great +shining copper vessels. My whole being vibrated to the charm of the +unfamiliar beauty about me, and I was fascinated by the strange aspect +of nature. + +Toward evening we reached the little town that marked the end of our +journey. It was situated on the bank of one of those southern rivers +that rush noisily over their shallow beds of white pebbles. The place +still retained its ancient arched gateway and high, pierced ramparts; +the prevailing color of the gothic houses lining its streets was +bright red. + +A little perplexed and agitated our eyes sought for the cousins whose +faces were not even known to us through photographs; but since they +had been apprised of our coming they would, no doubt, be at the +station to meet us. Suddenly we saw approaching us a tall young man, +and he had upon his arm a young lady dressed in white muslin. Without +the least hesitation we exchanged glances of recognition: we had found +each other. + +At their house, on the ground floor, our uncle and aunt welcomed us; +both of them in their old age preserved traces of a once-remarkable +beauty. They lived in an ancient house of the time of Louis XIII; it +was built in an angle, and was surrounded by those porches that are so +frequently seen in small, southern mountain towns. + +When we entered we found ourselves in a vestibule flagged with pinkish +stones and ornamented with a large fountain of burnished copper. A +staircase of the same stones, as imposing as a castle staircase, with +a curious balustrade of wrought-iron, led to the old-fashioned +wainscoted bedrooms on the second floor. And these things evoked a +past very different from that I had brooded over upon the Island, at +St. Ongeoise, the only past with which I was at this time familiar. + +After dinner we went out and sat together upon the bank of the noisy +river; we sat in a meadow overgrown with centauries and sweet +marjoram, recognizable in the darkness because of their penetrating +odor. It was a very still, warm evening and innumerable crickets +chirped in the grass. It seemed to me that I had never before seen so +many stars in the heavens. The difference in latitude was not so +great, but the sea air that tempers our winters also makes our summer +evenings hazy; in consequence we could see more stars here in this +southern country with its clear atmosphere, than at our home. + +The majestic mountains surrounding us, from which I could not take my +eyes, looked like great blue silhouettes: the mountains, never seen +until now, gave me the feeling, so much longed for, of being in a +distant country, they gave me the assurance that one of the dreams of +my childhood had come true. + +I spent several summers in this village, and I made myself enough at +home to learn the southern dialect spoken by the people there. Indeed +the two provinces I became best acquainted with in my childhood was +this southern one and that of St. Ongeoise, both of them lands of +sunshine. + +Brittany, which so many take to be my native place, I did not see +until a later time, not until I was seventeen, and I did not learn to +love it until long after that,--doubtless that is why I loved it so +ardently. At first it oppressed me and induced a feeling of extreme +sadness; my brother Ives initiated me into its charm, a charm tinged +with melancholy, and it was he who persuaded me to explore its +thatched cottages and wooden chapels. And following this, the +influence that a young girl of Treguier exercised over my imagination, +when I was about twenty-seven, strengthened my love for Brittany, the +land of my adoption. + + + + + CHAPTER XLIII. + + + +The day after my arrival at my uncle's I met some children named +Peyrals who became my playmates. According to the fashion of that part +of the country their baptismal names were spoken preceded by the +definite article. The two little girls respectively ten and twelve +years old were called "the Marciette" and "the Titi," and their +younger brother, still a little chap, who did not, therefore, figure +so largely in our plays, was called "the Medon." + +As I was younger in my ways than most boys of twelve,--in spite of my +understanding of some things usually beyond the comprehension of +children,--we immediately became a congenial little band, and for +several summers we came together and enjoyed each other's +companionship. + +The father of the little Peyrals owned all the forests and vineyards +upon the hillsides about us. We had the freedom of them, were +absolutely our own masters, and no one controlled or restrained us in +any way, no matter how absurd we were. + +In that mountain village our relatives were so esteemed by the +peasants living around them, that it was perfectly proper for us to +wander any where and every where in search of adventures. We would +start out very early in the morning upon mysterious expeditions, or we +went to distant vineyards to have picnics or to chase butterflies that +we never caught. Sometimes a little peasant would enlist in our ranks +and follow submissively wherever we led. After the espionage to which +I had been accustomed I found this liberty a delicious change. An +altogether novel and independent life in the mountains; I might with +some show of reason call it a continuation of my solitude, for I was +the senior of these children who merely participated in my fantastic +plays: between us there were abysmal differences springing from the +quality of our minds and imaginations. + +I was always the undisputed chief of the band; Titi, the only one who +ever revolted, was easily brought to terms; the children seemed to +wish to please me in everything, and that made it very easy for me to +manage them. + +That was the first little band I led. Later, other ones, less easy to +cope with, came under my dominion; but I always preferred to have them +composed of persons younger than myself, younger in mental development +especially, and more simple in every way than I, so that they would +not interfere with my whims, nor laugh at my childishness. + + + + + CHAPTER XLIV. + + + +The only task required of me during my vacation was that I should read +from Fenelon's Telemaque (my education, you see, was a little out of +date). My copy of the work was composed of several small volumes. +Strangely enough, it was not irksome to me. I could image to myself +distinctly the land of Greece with its white marble temples and its +bright sky, and I had a conception of pagan antiquity that was almost +as vivid (if not so correct) as Fenelon's: Calypso and her nymphs +enchanted me. + +Every day, in order to read, I hid myself from the Peyrals, either in +my uncle's garden or in the garret of his house, my two favorite +hiding-places. + +This garret, under the high Louis XIII roof, extended the full length +of the house. The shutters of the place were seldom opened, and there +was here, in consequence, almost perpetual twilight. The old things, +belonging to a bygone century, lying there under the dust and cobwebs +attracted me from the first day; and, little by little, the habit of +slipping up there with my Telemaque had grown upon me. I usually stole +up after the noon dinner, secure in the thought that no one would +dream of looking for me there. At this noon hour of hot and radiant +sunshine, the garret, by contrast, was almost as dark as night. +Noiselessly I would throw open a shutter of one of the dormer windows +and a flood of sunshine poured in; then I climbed out on the roof, and +with elbows resting upon the sun-warmed old slate tiles overgrown with +golden mosses, I would read my book. + +Around me, on this same roof, thousands of Agen plums were drying. +This fruit, intended for winter use, was spread out on mats made of +reeds; warmed through and through by the sun and thoroughly dried they +were delicious; their fragrance, too, was exquisite and it impregnated +the whole garret. The bees and the wasps who, like me, ate them at +their pleasure, tumbled on their backs and extended their legs in the +air, overcome seemingly by the cloying sweetness of the fruit and the +heat of the day. And on the neighboring roofs, between the old gothic +gables, there were similar reed mats covered with these same plums, +all visited by myriads of buzzing wasps and bees. + +One could also see from here the two streets that came together in +front of my uncle's house; they were lined with mediaeval dwellings, +and each terminated at an arched door that was cut in the high red +stone wall that had formerly served as a fortification. The village +was hot and drowsy and silent, the heat of the mid-summer sun made it +torpid; but one could hear innumerable chickens and ducks scratching +and pecking at the sun-baked dirt in the streets. And far away in the +distance the mountains pierced the cloudless blue of the heavens with +their sunny heights. + +I read Telemaque in very small doses; two or three pages a day was +generally enough to satisfy my curiosity and to ease my conscience for +the day; that task over, I went down hurriedly to find my little +friends, and we would set out on a trip to the woods and vineyards. + +My uncle's garden, my other place of retreat, was not attached to the +house, but was situated, as were all the other ones in the village, +beyond the ramparts of the town. It was surrounded by very high walls, +and one had entrance to it through an old arched gate that was +unlocked with an enormous key. Upon certain days, armed with my +Telemaque and my butterfly-net, I isolated myself there. + +In the garden there were several plum trees, and from them there fell, +onto the warm earth, over-ripe plums of the same variety as those +drying on the ancient roofs. The old arbor was trellised with grape +vines, and legions of flies and bees feasted upon the musky, fragrant +grapes. The extreme end of the garden, for it was a very large one, +was overgrown like an ordinary field with alfalfa. + +The charm of this old orchard lay in the feeling it gave one of being +greatly secluded, of being absolutely alone in a wilderness of space +and silence. + +I must not forget to speak of the old arbor that two summers later was +the scene of the most momentous act of my childhood. It backed against +the surrounding wall, and its lattice-work was overspread with +muscadine vines that the sun scorched and withered. + +In this garden, for some inexplicable reason, I had the impression of +being in the tropics, in the colonies of my fancy. And in truth the +tropical gardens that I saw later were filled with the same heavy +fragrance and had much the same appearance. From time to time rare +butterflies, such as are not often seen elsewhere, flitted through the +garden. From a front view they looked like common yellow and black +butterflies, but a side view showed them to be as glistening and as +beautiful a blue as the exotic ones from Guinea that I had seen under +glass in my uncle's museum. They were very wary and difficult to +ensnare, for they rested only for a second at a time upon the fragrant +muscadel grapes before fluttering away over the wall. Sometimes I +would place my foot in a crevice of the stone wall, and scramble up to +the top to look after them as they flew across the hot and silent +fields; and often I remained there on the coping for a long time, +propped upon my elbows, and contemplated the distant landscape. Every +where upon the horizon there were wooded mountains surrounded here and +there by the ruins of feudal castles. Before me, in the midst of +fields of corn and buckwheat, was the Bories estate. Its old arched +porch, the only one in the neighborhood that was whitewashed, looked +like one of those entry-ways that are so common in African villages. +This estate, I had been told, belonged to the St. Hermangarde +children, who were destined to become my future comrades. They were +expected almost daily, but I dreaded to have them come, for my little +band composed of the Peyrals seemed all sufficient and extremely well +chosen. + + + + + CHAPTER XLV. + + + +Castelnau! This ancient name brings to me visions of glorious sunshine +and of clear light shining upon noble heights; it evokes the gentle +melancholy that I felt among its ruins, and recalls to me my dreams +before the dead splendors buried there for so many centuries. + +The old ruin of Castelnau was perched on one of the most heavily +wooded mountains in the neighborhood, and its reddish stone turrets +and towers stood out boldly against the sky. + +By looking over and beyond the wall surrounding my uncle's garden I +could see the ancient castle. Indeed, it was a conspicuous point in +the landscape, and one immediately saw its rough red stones emerging +from the interlaced trees; one instantly noted the ancient ruin +crowning the mountain all overgrown with the beautiful verdure of +chestnut and oak trees. + +Upon the day of my arrival I had caught a glimpse of it, and I was +attracted by this old eagle's nest which must have been a superb place +of refuge during the stormy middle ages. It was a common custom in my +uncle's family to go up there two or three times a month to dine and +pass the afternoon with the proprietor, an old clergyman, who lived in +a comfortable house built against one side of the ruin. + +For me those days were like a revel in fairy land. + +We started very early in the morning so that we should be beyond the +plains before the hottest period of the day. When we arrived at the +foot of the mountain we were refreshed by the cool shade of the +forest, enveloped in its mantle of beautiful green. As we went up and +up, by zig-zag paths, afoot, and in single file, under lofty arching +oaks and intertwined foliage our line of march resembled a huge +serpent. I was reminded of Gustave Dore's engravings of mediaeval +pilgrims making their way to isolated abbeys perched on mountain +heights. Tiny springs oozed out here and there and trickled across the +red earth; between the trees we had momentary glimpses of beautiful +and extensive vistas. At last we reached the summit, and after passing +through the very quaint village that had perched on this height for +many centuries, we rang the bell at the priest's tiny door. The castle +overhung his miniature garden and house; both were built under the +shadow of the crumbling walls and the sinking, almost tottering, red +stone towers. A great peace seemed to emanate from those aerie ruins, +and a deep silence reigned there. + +The dinners given by the old priest, to which several of the +notabilities of the neighborhood were invited, always lasted very +long. The ten or fifteen courses had an accompaniment of the ripest +fruits and the choicest wines of that country so excelling in +exquisite vintages. + +For several hours we remained at the table afflicted by the August or +September midday heat, and I, the only child in the company, became +very restless; I was disturbed by the thought of the crushing nearness +of the castle, and after the second course I would ask to be permitted +to leave the table. An old serving-woman used always to go with me and +open the outer door in the wall of the feudal ramparts of Castelnau; +then she confided the keys of the stately ruin to me, and I plunged +alone, with a delicious feeling of fear, into the familiar path, and +passed through the gate of the drawbridge superposed on the ramparts. + +There I might remain for an hour or two sure of not being disturbed; I +was at liberty to wander about in that labyrinth, and I was master in +the majestic but sad domain. Oh! the sweet memory of the reveries that +I have had there! . . . First I would make a tour about the terraces +overhanging the forest lying below; a panorama infinitely beautiful +unrolled itself to my sight; rivers winding here and there in the +distance looked like streams of silver; and, aided by the clear and +limpid summer atmosphere, I could see almost as far as the neighboring +provinces. A great calm pervaded this sequestered corner of France; no +line of railway penetrated it; and in consequence, it led a life +entirely apart from the big world, a life such as it had known in the +good old time. + +After visiting the terraces I would go into the ruined interior, into +the courts, up the stairways and through the empty galleries. I +climbed to the old towers and put to flight flocks of pigeons, and +disturbed the sleep of bats and owls. On the first floor there was a +suite of spacious rooms, still roofed over, and very dark because of +the shuttered windows. I penetrated into these chambers, and I felt an +almost delicious terror when I heard my footsteps echoing through the +sepulchral stillness of the place. Then I would pass in review before +the strange Gothic paintings and the half-effaced frescoes that still +retained traces of gilt ornamentation; the fabled monsters and +garlands of impossible flowers had been added at the time of the +Renaissance. This magnificent, pictured past, fantastic and barbarous +to the point of being terrible, seemed to me, at that time, very vague +and dim and distant; I could not realize that it had been lighted up +by the same midday sunshine that warmed the red stones of the ruins +about me. And now that I am better able to estimate Castelnau, when I +recall it to my memory, after having seen most of the splendors of +this earth, I still think the enchanted castle of my childhood, as it +stands upon its glorious height, one of the most superb ruins of +mediaeval France. + +In one of the towers there was a room whose ceiling was painted a +royal blue over-strewn with exquisite gold tracery and blazonry. In no +place have I realized feudalism so well as in that tower. There alone, +in the silence as of a city of the dead, I would lean out of the +little window cut in the thick wall and contemplate the green verdure +lying below me, and I tried to imagine that I saw coming along the +paths, given over to the flight of birds, a cavalcade of soldiers, or +a procession of noble knights and ladies. . . . And, for me, reared in +a level country, one of the greatest charms of the place was the view +I had of blue distances visible from every loophole and crevice, every +gap and opening in the rooms and towers of Castelnau, for then I +realized its extraordinary height. + + + + + CHAPTER XLVI. + + + +My brother's letters, written close on very fine paper, continued to +reach us from time to time; he could only send them to us by sailing +vessels bound in our direction which lay-to in that part of the world +where he was stationed. Some of them were written particularly for me, +and these were long, and filled with never-to-be-forgotten +descriptions. I already knew several words of the sweet and liquid +language of Oceanica, and often in my dreams I saw the exquisite +island he described and roamed over it; it haunted my imagination as +does a chimerical realm, ardently desired, but as inaccessible as if +situated upon another planet. + +During my visit to my cousins my father forwarded me a letter from my +brother addressed to me. I went up to the garret roof, on the side +where the plums were drying, to read it. He wrote of a place called +Fataua which was situated in a deep valley and surrounded by steep +mountains. "A perpetual twilight," he wrote, "reigns here under the +great exotic trees, and the spray of the cascade keeps the carpet of +rare ferns fresh." Yes; I could picture that scene to myself very +well, now that I had about me mountains and moist glens luxuriant with +ferns. . . . He described everything fully and vividly: my brother +could not know that his letters exercised a dangerous spell over the +child who, at his departure, appeared to be so tranquil and so +attached to the home fireside. + +"The only pity," he wrote at the end, "is that this delightful island +has not a door opening into the home-yard, into the beautiful arbor +overgrown with honeysuckle, for instance, that lies behind the +grottoes and the little pond." + +This idea of a door in the wall at the foot of our garden, and +especially the association between the little lake constructed by my +brother and distant Oceanica, struck me as very singular, and the +following night I had this dream: + +I went into the yard and found it enveloped in a sort of deadly +twilight that gave me the impression that the sun had been +extinguished forever. Every where there seemed to be an inexpressible +desolation that is known only in dreams, and which it is almost +impossible to conceive of in the waking state. When I arrived at the +bottom of the garden near the beloved little lake, I felt myself +rising from the ground like a bird about to take flight. At first I +floated aimlessly as thistledown, then I passed over the wall and took +a south-west direction, the direction of Oceanica; I had no trace of +wings, and I lay on my back in an agony of dizziness and nausea as I +travelled with frightful rapidity, with the swiftness of a stone shot +from a sling. The stars whirled madly in space; beneath me oceans and +seas faded into the pallid and indistinguishable distance, and as I +journeyed I was ever enwrapped in that twilight bespeaking a dead +world. . . . After a few minutes I suddenly found myself encompassed +by the darkness of the noble trees in the valley of Fataua. + +There in the valley my dream continued, for I ceased to believe in it, +--the utter impossibility of really being there impressed itself upon +my mind,--for very often I had been duped by such illusions which +always vanished when I awoke. My main concern was lest I should wake +wholly, for the vision, incomplete as it was, enchanted me. At least +the carpet of rare ferns was really there. As I groped in the night +air and plucked them I said to myself: "Surely these plants are real, +for I can touch them and I have them in my hand; surely they will not +disappear when the dream vanishes." And I grasped them with all my +strength to be sure of keeping them. + +I awoke. A beautiful summer day had dawned, and in the village was +heard the noise of recommencing life. The continual clucking of the +hens as they roamed about in the streets, and the click-clack of the +weaver's loom caused me to realize where I was. My empty hand was +still shut tight, and the nails were pressed almost into the flesh, +the better to guard that imaginary bouquet of Fataua, composed of the +impalpable stuff of dreams. + + + + + CHAPTER XLVII. + + + +I had very quickly attached myself to my grown cousins, and I felt as +well acquainted with them as if I had always known them. I believe it +is necessary that there should be the bond of blood for the creation +of those intimate relations between people, who but the day before +were almost ignorant of each other's existence. I also loved my uncle +and aunt; my aunt especially, who spoiled me a little, and who was so +good and still so beautiful in spite of her sixty years, her gray hair +and her grandmotherly way of dressing herself. In these levelling +days, wherein one person is so like another, people of my aunt's type +no longer exist. Born in the neighborhood, of a very ancient family, +she had never been away from this province of France, and her manners, +her hospitality, and her exquisite courtesy had a local stamp, every +detail of which pleased me greatly. + +In direct contrast to my sheltered home life, here I lived almost +entirely out of doors. I roamed about in the streets and highways, and +often I went beyond the gates of the town. The narrow streets paved +with black pebbles like those in the Orient, and bordered with gothic +dwellings of the time of Louis XIII, had a singular charm for me. I +already knew all the nooks and corners, public highways and the byways +of the village, and I was well acquainted with many of the kind +country people who lived about us. + +The women, peasant women with goitres, who passed my uncle's house on +their way to and from the surrounding fields and vineyards, carried +baskets of fruit on their heads, and they always paused to offer me +luscious grapes and delicious peaches. I was delighted with the +southern dialect, and with the songs of the mountaineers; and, best of +all, my unfamiliar surroundings ever reminded me that I was in a +strange country. + +And now when I see any of the little things that I brought from there +for my museum, or when I look over the brief letters that I wrote to +my mother every day, I suddenly feel the warm sunshine, I experience +again the strange newness, I smell the fragrance of ripe southern +fruits, and I feel the keen freshness of the mountain air; and at such +times I realize that in spite of the long descriptions in these dead +pages they inadequately express all I felt. + + + + + CHAPTER XLVIII. + + + +The little St. Hermangardes, of whom every one spoke so often, arrived +about the middle of September. Their castle was situated in the north +upon the bank of the Carreze, but they came every year to pass the +autumn in their very old and dilapidated mansion near my uncle's +house. + +Two boys, both a little older than I, came this time, and contrary to +my expectation I took a fancy to them immediately. As they were in the +habit of spending a part of each year at their country place they had +guns and powder and often went hunting. Thus they brought an entirely +new element into our games. Their estate of Bories became one of the +centres of our operations. Everything there was at our disposal, the +servants and all the animals in the stables. One of our favorite +amusements was the construction of enormous balloons, nine or ten feet +high, and these we inflated by burning under them sheaves of hay; we +then watched them rise and sail away and away, until they were lost to +our sight high above the distant fields and woods. + +The little St. Hermangardes were unlike other children; they had had +all their instruction from a tutor, and their ideas were different +from those one imbibes at boarding schools. When there was any +disagreement between us in regard to our games they always courteously +gave in to me, and therefore my contact with them did not help me to +meet the painful experiences of the future. + +One day they came over and with much grace made me a present of a very +rare butterfly. It was of a pale yellow color, almost merging into +light green, the yellow of a very ordinary butterfly, but its front +wings were a shaded and exquisite pink, similar to the delicate rosy +tints sometimes seen at daybreak. They had captured it, they said, in +the late-ripening autumn grain fields of Bories,--they had caught hold +of it so deftly and carefully that their fingers had made no +impression upon its brilliant coloring. When, at about noontime, I +received it from them I was in the vestibule of my uncle's house, a +place always kept tightly closed during the hours of intense heat. +From the wing of the house I heard my cousin singing in the thin and +plaintive falsetto of a mountaineer; he often sang in that manner, and +when he did so his voice always gave me a feeling of unusual +melancholy as it broke the stillness of the late September noons. He +sang over and over the same old refrain: "Ah! Ah! The good, good +story. . . ." Here he always broke off and recommenced. And from that +moment Bories, the pinkish-yellow butterfly, and the sad little +refrain of the "good, good story" were inseparably associated in my +memory. + +But I fear that I have said too much about the incoherent impressions +and images which came to me so frequently in days gone by; this is the +last time that I will speak at length of them. But it will be seen, +because of what follows, how important it is for me to note the +association existing between the dissimilar things mentioned above. + + + + + CHAPTER XLIX. + + + +We left the mountains at the beginning of October, but my home-coming +was marked by a very painful circumstance--I was sent to school! I +went, of course, only as a day scholar; and it goes without saying +that I was never allowed to go and come alone lest I should get into +bad company. The four years that I spent at the university, as a day +scholar, were as strange and as full of odd experiences as any of my +life. But, notwithstanding, from that fatal day my history becomes +much less interesting as a narrative. + +I was taken to school for the first time, at two o'clock in the +afternoon, upon one of those glorious October days, so sunny and +peaceful, that is like a reluctant and sad leave-taking of the summer- +time. Ah! how beautiful it had been in the mountains, in the leafless +forests and among the autumn-tinted vines! + +With a crowd of children, all talking at the same time, I entered the +torture chamber. My first impression was one of astonished disgust +because of the hideousness of the ink-stained walls, and of the old +benches of shiny wood defaced by the penknife carvings of countless +school-boys who had been so inexpressibly miserable in this place. +Although I was a stranger to my new companions they treated me with +the greatest familiarity (they used thee and thou in addressing me) +and gave themselves patronizing airs that were almost impertinent. +Although I observed my school-mates timidly and furtively I thought +them, for the most part, exceedingly ill-mannered and untidy. + +As I was twelve and a half I entered the third class; my tutor +considered me advanced enough to keep up with it if I chose to do so, +although I myself felt that I was scarcely equal to the task. The +first day, for the purpose of qualifying, we had to write Latin +exercises, and I remember that my father awaited, with some anxiety, +the outcome of the examination. When I told him I was second among +fifteen I was surprised that he attached so much importance to a +matter of so little interest to me. It was all one to me! Broken +hearted as I felt, how could I be affected by such a trifle? + +Later, indeed, at no time, did I feel the impetus that the desire to +excel brings with it. To be at the foot of the class always seemed to +me the least of the ills that a school-boy is called upon to endure. + +The weeks following my entrance were extremely painful to me. I felt +my intellect cramping rather than expanding under the multiplicity of +the lessons and the tasks imposed; even the realm of my young dreams +seemed closing against me little by little. The first dismal, foggy +weather, and the first gray days added a greater desolation and +sadness to my already overwrought feelings. The uncouth chimney-sweeps +had returned, and their yearly autumn cry was again heard in the +streets. Theirs was a cry that in my earlier years wrung my heart and +caused my tears to flow. When one is a child the approach of winter, +with its killing gloom and cold, seems to awake in him inexplicable +forebodings bespeaking the end of all bright and beautiful things; +time goes so slowly in childhood that we appear not to be able to +anticipate the inevitable reawakening that comes in the spring to all +things. + +No, it is only when we are older, and would seem, therefore, to be +more impressionable to the changes of the seasons, that we regard +winter merely as an incident having its rightful place among the other +incidents of life. + +I had a calendar and I marked off upon it the slowly passing days. At +the commencement of my first year of college life I was oppressed by +the thought of the months of study stretching before me, and by the +prospect of the interminable months that must come and go before we +reached the Easter vacation that was to give us a respite of eight or +ten days from the dreadful schoolroom grind and ennui; I seemed to +lose all my courage, and at times I was almost overwhelmed with +despair at the prospect of the long and dreary days that went so +slowly. + +In the meantime cold weather, really cold weather set in and +aggravated my sorrows. Oh! the daily journey to school upon those +frigid December mornings, where for two deadly hours the only warmth +we obtained came from the inadequate coal fire, and before me the +torture of returning to my home in the face of the icy winter wind! +The other children frolicked and ran and pushed each other, and they +slid upon the ice when it chanced that the water in the gutters was +frozen over. As for me I did not know how to slide, and, besides, +sports such as the other boys indulged in, I considered highly +undignified. I was always escorted to and from school very sedately, +and I felt the humiliation of being conducted. I was sometimes laughed +at by my school-mates with whom I was not at all popular; and I had a +disdain for those who, like myself, were in bondage. I had scarcely an +idea in common with them. + +Even Thursdays I had to give to the preparation of lessons that took +the entire day. The written tasks, absurd exercises, I scrawled off in +the most careless and illegible handwriting. + +And my disgust for life was so great that I no longer took the least +bit of pains with myself; often now I was scolded for looking so +unkempt, and for having dirty, ink-stained hands. . . . But if I +continue in this strain I will succeed in making my recital as tedious +as were the school-days of my youth. + + + + + CHAPTER L. + + + +Cakes! Cakes! My good hot cakes! The old cake woman had resumed her +nightly tour, and again we heard her rapid footsteps and her shrill +refrain. Always at the same hour, with the regularity of an automaton, +she went by our house. And the long winter recommenced in the same +manner as had the preceding ones, and as were similarly to begin the +following two or three years. + +Our neighbors, the D-----s, accompanied by Lucette, always came at +eight o'clock Sunday evenings, and another neighbor visited us also +upon this same evening. These latter brought with them their little +daughter Marguerite, who gradually insinuated herself into my +affections. + +That year Marguerite and I brought the Sunday winter evenings, over +which the thought of the tasks of the morrow brooded sadly, to a close +with an entirely new amusement. After the tea, when I felt that the +party was about to break up, I would hurry little Marguerite into the +dining-room, and there we rushed madly about the round table and tried +to catch or tag each other,--we played furiously. It goes without +saying that she was usually caught immediately and tagged very often, +and I scarcely ever; it therefore fell out that it was almost always +her turn to chase me, and she did it desperately. We struck the table +with our bodies, and yelled, and carried on our play with the greatest +imaginable uproar. We succeeded in turning up the rugs, in +disarranging the chairs, and in making havoc of everything. We soon +tired of our play, however,--the truth is I was too old to care +greatly for such frolics. I had scarcely any feeling save one of +melancholy in spite of the wild sport I indulged in, for over me +hovered the chilling thought that in the morning the usual round of +dry and laborious lessons would begin. My furious revel was simply a +way of prolonging that day of truce, of making it count to its very +last moment; it was an attempt to divert my thoughts by making plenty +of noise. It was also my way of hurling a defiance at those tasks that +I had left undone. My negligence troubled my conscience and disturbed +my sleep, and caused me finally to look over, hastily and feverishly, +by the feeble light of a candle, or by the cold gray light of early +dawn, the neglected lessons, before the coming of the despised hour in +which I betook myself to school. + +There was always a little consternation in the parlor when the sounds +of our merriment reached those gathered there; it must have been +particularly distressing to our parents to hear that we were amusing +ourselves otherwise than with our duet sonatas, and to find that we +preferred noise and discord to the "Pretty Shepherdess." + +And for at least two winters, at about half-past ten every Sunday +evening, we indulged in that romp around the dining-table. My school +was of little value to me, and the tasks imposed of even less benefit; +I always went to work reluctantly and in the wrong spirit, and that +lessened and extinguished my power and stupefied me. I had the same +unfortunate experience when I came in contact with school-mates of my +own age, my equals; their roughness disgusted me, and I repulsed all +the efforts they made to be friendly. . . . I never saw them except in +class, under the master's rod as it were; I had already become a +little being too peculiar and set in my ways to be modified greatly by +contact with them, and I therefore held aloof, and my eccentricities +accentuated themselves. + +Almost all of them were older and more developed than I; they also +were more crafty and more sophisticated; in consequence there sprung +up amongst them a feeling of contempt and enmity for me that I repaid +with disdain, for I felt sure that they were incapable of +comprehending or following the flights of my imagination. + +With the very youthful peasants in the mountains, and the fishermen's +children on the Island, I had never been haughty; we had understood +each other after the fashion of children who are primitive and +therefore fond of childish play; and upon such occasions I had +associated with them as if they were my equals. But I was arrogant in +my behavior to the boys at school, and they had good reason to +consider me whimsical and priggish. It took me many years to conquer +that arrogance, to act simply and like other people in the world; and +especially it was difficult for me to realize that one is not +necessarily superior to his fellows because he is (to his own +misfortune often) prince and conjurer in the realm of fancy. + + + + + CHAPTER LI. + + + +The theatre wherein was enacted the "Donkey's Skin," very much +amplified and more elaborate, had now a permanent place in my aunt +Claire's room. Little Jeanne, more interested in it since the +additions to the scenery and the text, came over oftener; she painted +backgrounds under my direction, and the moments I enjoyed most were +those in which I impressed her with my great superiority. We had now a +box full of characters, each with a name and a role; and the fantastic +processions were made up of regiments of monsters, beasts and gnomes +made out of plaster and painted with water colors. + +I recall our delight and enthusiasm when we tried for the first time +the effect of a scenic background which we had made to represent the +"void of heaven." Delicate rosy clouds, bespeaking the dawn, floated +over the blue expanse that was softened and paled by the gauze hanging +in front of it. And the chariot of a silken-haired fairy, drawn by two +butterflies and suspended on invisible threads, advanced towards the +centre of the scene. + +But in spite of our efforts our work was never finished, for we took +no account of limitations; every day we had new ideas and ever more +and more wonderful projects, and the great comprehensive +representation was deferred from day to day, was postponed to a future +that never came. + +Every undertaking of my life will be, or has already been, left +unfinished and incomplete as was that little play of the "Donkey's +Skin." + + + + + CHAPTER LII. + + + +Among those professors who seemed, during my school-days, so severe, +and indeed almost cruel to me, the most terrible without any exception +were the "Bull of Apis" and the "Big Black Ape" (I had nicknames for +all of them). I hope should they read this they will understand that I +am writing from the child's view-point. Should I meet them to-day I +would, in all probability, humbly tender them my hand and ask their +pardon for having been such an unmanageable pupil. + +Oh! the Big Ape especially, how I hated him! When from the height of +his desk these words fell upon my ear: "You will do a hundred lines; I +mean you, you little sap-head!" I could have flown at his face like an +enraged cat. He was the first to arouse in me those sudden and violent +outbursts of rage that characterized me as a man, outbreaks which +could scarcely have been foreseen in a child of my sweet and patient +disposition. + +I would be doing myself a great injustice in saying that I was +altogether a bad scholar, I was, rather, an unequal and erratic one; +one day at the head of my class, the next day at the foot; but on the +whole I maintained a fair average, and at the end of the year I +received the prize for translation--I won no others however. It +surprised me that every one in the class did not receive the prize +that I had won without great effort, for translation was +extraordinarily easy for me. On the other hand I found composition +very difficult, and narration still more so. + +Little by little I deserted my own work-desk, and in my aunt Claire's +room, near the china bon-bon bear, I underwent with as much +resignation as possible, the torture that the preparing of my tasks +imposed. On the wainscoting of the wall, in a hidden recess of the +room, there is still visible, among the other fantastical sketches, a +pen-portrait of the "Big Ape"; the ink has faded to a light yellow, +but the drawing has endured, and when I look at it I again feel a sort +of deadly weariness, and a sensation of suffocation chills me through +and through--in short I once more live over those dread school-days. + +Aunt Claire was more than ever my resource during those hard times; +she always looked up words for me in the dictionary, and often she +took upon herself the task of writing for me, in an assumed hand, the +exercises exacted by the "Big Ape." + + + + + CHAPTER LIII. + + + +Bring me, please, dear, the second . . . no, the third drawer of my +chiffonier. + +It is mamma who is speaking; she is busying herself with the drawers +of the chiffonier which every day, for many years, she had asked me to +bring to her,--sometimes she pretends to need them merely for the +purpose of pleasing me by requiring my services. It was one of the +things that I was able to do for her when I was very little: to carry +to her one or another of those tiny drawers. It was an honored custom +in our household for a long time. + +At the time of my life of which I am now writing it was in the +evening, at dusk, after my return from school, that I busied myself +carrying the little chiffonier drawers. I usually found mamma seated +in her accustomed place near the window chatting or embroidering, her +work basket was before her, and the bureau, whose different +compartments she required from time to time, was situated some +distance away, in an anteroom. + +The Louis XVth chiffonier was very much revered, for it had belonged +to great-grandmothers. In it there were some very old and very tiny +painted boxes which had doubtless been handled every day by one or +another of our ancestresses. It goes without saying that I knew all +the secrets of these compartments that were kept in such exquisite +order; there was a special place for silks that was classified by +being put into ribbon bags; one for needles, another for braid, and +still another for little hooks. And these things were still arranged, +I have no doubt, as they had been in our grandmother's days, whose +saintly activity my mother imitated. + +To bring the drawers of the chiffonier to mamma was the joy and pride +of my childhood, and there has been no change in my feelings for those +little compartments since that time. They have always inspired me with +the most tender respect; they are blended with the image of my mother +and they recall to me her beautiful, skillful hands, ever busy +manufacturing some pretty, useful article,--even to her last piece of +embroidery which was a handkerchief for me. + +In my seventeenth year, when we met great reverses--at that troubled +time of which I will not speak here, but only mention because I have +already, in preceding chapters, touched upon the matter--we had to +face, for several months, the dreadful possibility of being obliged to +part with our old home and all the precious things that it contained. +At that time when I passed in review all the beloved memories and +habits and mementoes that I would need to break with, one of my most +agonizing thoughts was: "Never more will I be able to come and go in +the ante-chamber where the chiffonier stands, nor never again be able +to carry its precious little drawers to mamma." + +And her very old-fashioned work-basket that I had begged her not to +discard, although it was much worn, with its little articles, needle +books, receptacles for thimbles and screws for holding the embroidery +frames! The thought that a time must surely come when the well-beloved +hands that daily touch these things will touch them no more, fills me +with so much sorrow that I am bereft of all courage and I struggle in +vain against invading sad emotions. Let me hope that as long as I live +it may remain as it is, that for so long it will be guarded with the +sacredness of a relic; but to whom can I bequeath this heirloom with +the assurance that it will be cherished? What will become of those +poor little trifles that are so precious to me? + +That work-basket belonging to my mother, and the little drawers of the +old chiffonier are, I doubt not, the things that I will part with most +regretfully when the time comes for me to go into the world. + +Truly all of this is very puerile and childish, and I am ashamed of +it;--and yet I am almost weeping as I write it. + + + + + CHAPTER LIV. + + + +Because of the haste and confusion brought about by conflicting school +tasks, I had not for many months found time to read my Bible; indeed I +scarcely had time for a morning prayer. + +I still went to church regularly every Sunday; that is we all went +there together. I reverenced the family pew where we had assembled for +so many years; and apart from that reason I hold it dear because it is +associated in my memory with my mother. + +It was at church, however, that my faith continued to receive its most +damaging blows; it was there that religion seemed a cold and +meaningless term to me. Usually the commentaries, the narrow human +reasoning and dissection took away from the beauty of the Bible and +the Gospels, and deprived them of their grandly solemn and exquisite +poetry. For a peculiar nature like mine it was very difficult to have +any one touch upon holy subjects (in such a way as did the minister) +without in some measure, in my opinion, desecrating them. The family +worship, held every evening, awakened in me the only religious +meditation that I now knew, for the voice that read or prayed was +exceedingly dear to me, and that changed everything. + +My untiring contemplation of nature, and the reflections that I +indulged in in the presence of the fossils I had brought from the +mountains and cliffs, and placed in my museum, indicated that there +had been bred in me a vague and unconscious pantheism. + +In short my deeply rooted and still-living faith was covered over with +encumbering earth. At times it threw out a green shoot, but for the +most part it lay like an entirely dead thing in the cold ground. +Moreover, I was too much troubled to pray; my conscience, still +restive and timid, gave me no rest during the time that I was on my +knees,--I always felt remorse gnaw at me then because of the slovenly +and half-done tasks, and because of the feelings of hate I had for the +"Big Ape" and the "Bull of Apis," emotions that I was obliged to hide +and disguise until I shuddered at the falsehoods I spoke and acted. +These things gave me poignant remorse and excruciating moral distress, +and to escape from these emotions I indulged in noisy sports and +foolish laughter; and when my conscience troubled me most, and I dared +not, therefore, appear before my parents, I took refuge with the +servants, played tennis, jumped the rope, or make a great racket. + +For two or three years I had not spoken of a religious vocation, for I +now understood that such a desire was a thing of the past, was +impossible; but I had not found anything to put in its place. When +strangers asked what career I was being prepared for, my parents, a +little anxious in regard to my future, did not know what to say; and I +knew still less what to reply. + +However my brother, who was also much concerned over my enigmatical +future, in one of those letters that seemed always to come from an +enchanted land, suggested, because of a certain facility in +mathematics and a certain precision of nature, certainly anomalies in +one of my temperament, that it might be well for me to study +engineering. And when they consulted me and I replied apathetically: +"Very well, it is agreeable enough to me," the matter seemed +satisfactorily settled. + +I would need to spend a little more than a year at a polytechnic +school in order to prepare myself. To be there or elsewhere, what +difference did it make to me? . . . When I contemplated the men of a +certain age who surrounded me, those occupying the most honorable +positions, who had every claim to respect and consideration, I would +say to myself: "It will some day be necessary for me to live a useful, +sedate life in a given place and fixed sphere as they do, and to grow +old as they are--and that is all!" And a bitter hopelessness +overwhelmed me as I brooded on the thought; I yearned for the +impossible; I longed most of all to remain a child forever, and the +reflection that the years were fleeing, and that, whether I would or +would not, I must become a man, was anguish to me. + + + + + CHAPTER LV. + + + +Twice a week, in the history classes, I came in contact with the naval +students. To give themselves a sailor-like appearance they wore red +sashes, and they constantly drew ships and anchors on their copy- +books. + +I never dreamed of that career for myself; scarcely oftener than once +or twice had such a thought passed through my mind and then it had +disquieted me: it was, however, the only life in which I could indulge +my taste for travel and adventure. It terrified me, this naval career, +more than any other because of the long exiles it imposed, exiles that +faith could no longer make seem endurable, as in the days when I had +expressed a desire to become a missionary. + +To go far away as my brother had done; to be separated from my mother +and other beloved ones for years and years; not to see during that +time the little yard reclothe itself in green at the coming of the +spring, nor to see the roses bloom upon the old wall, no, I had not +the courage to undertake it. + +Because it was assumed, doubtless because of my peculiar education, +that such a rough life was wholly unsuited to me. And I knew very +well, from some words that had been spoken in my hearing, that should +so wild an idea gain a lodgment with me my parents would withhold +their consent and thwart me in every way. + + + + + CHAPTER LVI. + + + +On my Thursday holidays during the winter, after having finished my +duties and accomplished all my school tasks, I felt the greatest +homesickness when I mounted to my museum. It was always a little late +when I finished my lessons, and the light was usually fading when I +looked down at the great meadows that appeared inexpressibly +melancholy as they stretched before me enwrapped in a grayish-pink +mist. I was homesick for the summer, homesick for the sun and the +south, all of which were suggested by the butterflies from my uncle's +garden that I had arranged and pinned under glass, and by the mountain +fossils that the little Peyrals and I had collected in the summer +time. + +It was a foretaste of that longing for somewhere else which later, +after my return from long voyages to tropical countries, spoiled my +visits to my home. + +Oh! there was in particular the pinkish-yellow butterfly! There were +times when I experienced a bitter pleasure in seeking to understand +the great sadness that it caused me. It was in the glass case at the +far end of the room; its two colors so fresh and unusual, like a +Chinese painting, or a fairy's robe, were exquisite foils for each +other; the butterfly formed a luminous whole that shone out brightly +in the gray twilight, and it caused the other butterflies surrounding +it to look as dull as dun-colored little bats. + +As soon as my eyes rested upon it I seemed to hear drawled out lazily, +in a mountaineer's treble, the refrain: "Ah! ah! the good, good +story!" And again I saw the white porch of Bories in the midst of the +silence and the hot sunshine of a summer noon. A deep regret for past +and gone vacations took possession of me; I felt saddened when I tried +to recreate days belonging to a dead past, and tried to imagine +vacations still to come; but mingled in with sentiments that I can +name, there were those other inexpressible ones that well up from the +unfathomable deeps of one's being. + +This association between the butterfly, the song and Bories caused me +for a long time an extreme sadness that, try as hard as I may, I +cannot explain satisfactorily; and the feeling continued until stormy +and tempestuous winds swept over my life and carried away with them +the small concerns belonging to my childhood. + +Sometimes, upon gray winters evenings, when I looked at the butterfly +I would sing to myself the little refrain of the "good, good story;" +to accomplish this I had to make my voice very flute-like; and as I +sang, the porch of Bories appeared to me more vividly than ever, as it +stood, sunny but desolate, under the dazzling light of the September +noon. This association was a little like the one that later +established itself for me between the sad falsetto of the Arab songs, +the snowy splendor of their mosques and the winding-sheet whiteness of +their lime-washed porticos. + +That butterfly in all the freshness and radiance of its two strange +colors, mummified, it is true, but as brilliant looking as ever under +its glass, retains for me a sort of old-time charm which I cherish. +The little St. Hermangardes, whom I have not seen for many years, and +who are now attached to an embassy somewhere in the Orient, would +doubtless, should they read this, be much astonished to learn what +value circumstances has given to their little present. + + + + + CHAPTER LVII. + + + +The chief event of these winters, so poisoned by my college life, was +the gift-giving festival that we had at New Year. + +At about the end of November it was our custom, my sister's, Lucette's +and mine, to make out a list of the things we desired most. Everybody +in the two families prepared surprises for us, and the mystery +surrounding these gifts was our most exquisite pleasure during the +last days of the year. Between parents, grandmother and aunts there +occurred, to excite my curiosity still further, conversations full of +mysterious hints, and whisperings that were hastily discontinued as +soon as I appeared. + +Between Lucette and me it became a real guessing game. As in the play +of "Words with a double meaning," we had the right to ask certain +pointed questions,--for example we asked the most ridiculous ones, +such as: "Has it hair like an animal?" + +And the answers went something after this fashion: + +What your father is to give you (a dressing-case made of leather) had +hair, but it has none now, except on some portion of its interior +(brushes), and that is false. Your mamma's present (a fur muff) still +has some hair. What your aunt is to give you (a lamp) will help you to +see the hair on the others better; but, let me see, yes, I am sure +that that has none. + +In the December twilights, in that hour between daylight and darkness, +we would sit upon our low stools before the wood-fire, and continue +our series of questions from day to day. We grew ever more eager and +excited until the 31st, and in the evening of that momentous day the +mysteries were revealed. + +That day the presents for the two families, wrapped, tied and labeled, +were piled upon tables in a room closed against Lucette and me. At +eight o'clock the doors were thrown open and we filed in, the elders +going first, and each one of us sought for his own gift among the heap +of white parcels. For me the moment of entry was an exceedingly joyous +one, and until I was twelve or thirteen years of age, I could not +refrain from jumping and leaping like a kid long before it came time +for us to cross the threshold. + +We had supper at eleven, and when the clock in the dining room struck +the midnight hour, tranquilly, in harmony with the sound of its calm +stroke, we separated in the first moments of those New Years that are +now buried under the ashes of many succeeding ones. And on those +evenings I fell asleep with all my gifts in my room near me. I even +kept the favorite ones upon my bed. The following morning I always +waked earlier than usual so that I might re-examine them; they cast a +spell of enchantment over that winter morning, the first one of a new +year. + +Once there was, among my presents, a large illustrated book treating +of the antediluvian world. + +Through the study of fossils I had already been initiated into the +mysteries of prehistoric creations. I knew something about those +terrible creatures that in geologic times shook the primitive forests +with their heavy tread; for a long time the thought of them disquieted +me. I found them all in my book pictured in their proper habitat, +surrounded by great brakes, and standing under a leaden sky. + +The antediluvian world already haunted my imagination and became the +constant subject of my dreams; often I concentrated my whole mind upon +it, and endeavored to picture to myself one of its gigantic landscapes +that seemed ever enveloped in a sinister and gloomy twilight with a +background filled in with great moving shadows. Then when the vision +thus created took on a seeming reality I felt an inexpressible sadness +that was like an exhalation of the soul,--as soon as the emotion +passed the dream-structure vanished. + +Soon after this I sketched a new scene for the "Donkey's Skin;" it was +one representing the liassic period. I painted a dismal swamp +overshadowed by lowering clouds, where, in the shave-grass and the +gigantic ferns, strange extinct beasts wandered slowly. + +The play of the "Donkey's Skin" seemed no longer the same Donkey's +Skin. I discarded one by one the little stage people who now offended +me by their uncompromising doll-like stiffness; they were relegated to +their card-board box, the poor little things, where they slept the +sleep eternal, and without doubt they will never be exhumed. + +My new scenes had nothing in common with the old fairy spectacle: in +the depths of virgin forests, in exotic gardens, and oriental palaces +formed of pearls and gold I tried to realize, with the small means at +my command, all my dreams, while waiting for that improbable better +time that ever lies in the future. + + + + + CHAPTER LVIII. + + + +That hard winter passed under the ferule of the "Bull of Apis" and the +"Great Ape," finally came to an end and spring returned; it was always +a troublous time for us, the scholars, for the first mild days gave us +a great longing to be out, and we could scarcely hide our +restlessness. The roses budded everywhere upon our old walls; my +beloved little garden, bright and warm under the March sunshine, +tempted me, and I would tarry there a long time to watch the insects +wake up, and to see the early butterflies and bees fly away. Even the +revised "Donkey's Skin" was neglected. + +I was no longer escorted to and from school, for I had persuaded my +family to discontinue a custom that made me ridiculous in the eyes of +my companions. Often, before returning home, I would take a long and +roundabout way and pass by the peaceful ramparts from where I had +glimpses of other provinces, and a sight of the distant country. + +I worked with even less zeal than usual that spring, for the beautiful +weather that tempted me out of doors turned my head and made study +almost impossible. + +Assuredly one of the things for which I had the least aptitude was +French composition; I generally composed a mere rough draught without +a particle of embellishment to redeem it. In the class there was a boy +who was a very eagle, and he always read his lucubrations aloud. Oh! +with what unction he read out his pretty creations! (He is now settled +in a manufacturing town, and has become the most prosaic of petty +bailiffs.) One day the subject given out was: "A Shipwreck." To me the +words had a lyrical sound! But, nevertheless, I handed in my paper +with only the title and my name inscribed upon it. No, I could not +make up my mind to elaborate the subjects given to us by the "Great +Ape"; a sort of instinctive good taste kept me from writing trite +commonplaces, and as for putting down things of my own imagining, the +knowledge that they would be read and picked to pieces by the old +bogey made it impossible for me to compose anything. + +I loved, however, even at this time, to write for myself, but I did it +with the greatest secrecy. Not in the desk in my room that was +profaned by lessons and copy-books, but in the little old-fashioned +one that was part of the furniture of my museum, there was hidden away +a unique thing that represented my first attempt at a journal. It +looked like a sibyl's conjuring book, or an Assyrian manuscript; a +seeming endless strip of paper was rolled upon a reed; at the head of +this there were two varieties of the Egyptian sphinx and a cabalistic +star drawn in red ink,--and under these mysterious signs I wrote down, +upon the full length of the paper and in a cipher of my own invention, +daily events and reflections. A year later, however, because of the +labor involved in transcribing the cryptographic characters I had +chosen I discarded them and used the ordinary letters; but I continued +my work with the greatest secrecy, and I kept my manuscript under lock +and key as if it were an interdicted book. I inscribed there, not so +much the events of my almost colorless existence, as my incoherent +impressions, the melancholy that I felt at twilight, my regret for +past summers, and my dreams of distant countries. . . . I already had +a longing to give my fugitive emotions a determinative quality, I +needed to wrestle against my own weaknesses and frailties and to +banish, if possible, the dream-like element that I seemed to discover +in all the things about me, and for that reason I continued my journal +until a few years ago. . . . But at that time the mere idea that a day +might come when someone would have a peep at it was insupportable to +me; so much so indeed that if I left home and went to the Island or +elsewhere for a few days, I always took care to seal up my journal, +and with the greatest solemnity I wrote upon the packet: "It is my +last wish that this book be burned without being read." + +God knows, I have changed since then. But it would be going too far +beyond the limits of this story of my childhood to recount here +through what changes in my life's view-point it chances that I now +sing aloud of my woes, and cry out to the passers-by, for the purpose +of drawing to myself the sympathy of distant unknown ones; and I call +out with the greater anguish in proportion as I feel myself +approaching nearer and nearer to the final dust. . . . And who knows? +perhaps as I grow older I may write of those still more sacred things +which at present cannot be forced from me,--and by that means try to +prolong beyond the bounds of my individual life, memory of my being, +of my sorrows, and joys, and love. + + + + + CHAPTER LIX. + + + +The return that spring of little Jeanne's father from a sea voyage +interested me greatly. For several days her house was topsy-turvy with +preparation, and one could guess the joy they felt over his +approaching arrival. The frigate that he commanded reached port a +little earlier than his family expected it, and from my window I saw +him, one fine evening, hurrying along the street alone, on his way +home to surprise his people. He had arrived from I know not which +distant colony after an absence of two or three years, but it did not +seem to me that he was the least altered in appearance. . . . One +could then return to his home unchanged? They did come to an end after +all, those years of exile, which now I find, in truth, much shorter +than they seemed in those days! My brother himself was to return the +following autumn, and it would doubtless then seem as if he had never +been away from us. + +And what joyous events those home-comings were! And what a distinction +surrounded those who had but newly returned from so great a distance! + +The next day in Jeanne's yard I watched them unpack the enormous +wooden boxes that her father had brought from strange countries; some +of them were covered with tarpaulin cloth,--pieces of sails no doubt, +that were impregnated with the agreeable odor of the ship and the sea; +two sailors wearing large blue collars were busy uncording and +unscrewing them; and they took from them strange looking objects that +had an odor of the "colonies;" straw mats, water jars and Chinese +vases; even cocoanuts and other tropical fruits. + +Jeanne's grandfather, himself an old seaman, was standing near me +watching from the corner of his eye the process of unpacking; +suddenly, from between the boards of a case that was being broken open +with a hatchet, there crawled out hastily some ugly little brown +insects that the sailors jumped on with their feet and destroyed. + +"Cockroaches are they not, Captain?" I inquired of the grandfather. + +"Ha! How do you know that, you little landlubber?" he laughingly +responded. + +To tell the truth, I had never seen any such insects before; but +uncles who had lived in the tropics often spoke of them. And I was +delighted to make the acquaintance of these tiny creatures that are +peculiar to ships and to warm countries. + + + + + CHAPTER LX. + + + +Spring! Spring! + +The white roses and the jasmine bloomed on our old garden wall, and +the deliciously fragrant honeysuckle hung its long garlands over it. + +I began to live there from morning until night in closest intimacy +with the plants and the old stones. I listened to the sound of the +water as it plashed in the shade of the majestic plum tree, I studied +the grasses and the wood mosses that grew at the edge of my little +lake; and upon the warm side of the garden where the sun shone all +through the day, the cactus put out its buds. + +My Wednesday evening trips to Limoise commenced again,--and it goes +without saying that I dreamed of the beloved place from one week to +the next to the detriment of my lessons and my other duties. + + + + + CHAPTER LXI. + + + +I believe that that spring was the most radiant and the most +ravishingly happy one of my childhood, in contrast no doubt to the +terrible winter spent under the rigorous care of the Great Ape. + +Oh! the end of May, the high grass and then the June mowing! In what a +glory of golden light I see it all again! + +I took evening walks with my father and sister as I had done during my +earlier years; they now came to meet me at the close of school, at +half-past four, and we set out immediately for the fields. Our +preference that spring was for a certain meadow abloom with pink +amourettes, and I always brought home great bouquets of these flowers. + +In that same meadow a migratory and ephemeral species of moth, black +and pink (of the same pink as the amourettes) had hatched out, and +they slept poised on the long stalks of the grass, or flew away as +lightly as the flowers shed their petals when we walked through the +hay. . . . And all of these things appear to me again as I saw them in +the exquisite, limpid June atmosphere. . . . During the afternoon +classes, the thought of the sun-dappled meadows made me more restless +than did even the mild air and the spring odors that came in through +the open windows. + +I cherish particularly the remembrance of an evening in which my +mother had promised, as a special favor, to join us in our walk to the +fields of pink amourettes. That afternoon I had been more inattentive +than usual, and the Great Ape had threatened to keep me in, and all +during my lessons I firmly believed that I was to be punished. This +keeping in after school, which shut us away from the beautiful June +day an hour longer, was always a cruel torture. But to-day my heart +felt particularly heavy as I reflected that mamma would, doubtless, +come at the appointed hour and expect me,--and with some bitterness I +thought that the springtime was so very short, that the hay would soon +need to be cut, and that perhaps there would not be, the whole summer +long, such another glorious evening as this one. + +As soon as school was over I anxiously consulted the fatal list in the +hands of the monitor; my name was not there! The Big Black Ape had +forgotten me, or had been merciful! + +Oh! with what joy I rushed away to join mamma who had kept her promise +and who, with my father and sister, smilingly awaited me. . . . The +air that I breathed in was more delicious than ever, it was +exquisitely soft and balmy, and the atmosphere had a tropical +resplendence. + +When I recall that time, when I think of those meadows all abloom with +amourettes, and of those pink moths, there is mingled, to my regret, a +sort of indefinable pain whose intensity I cannot understand, an +anguish I always feel when I find myself in the presence of things +that impress and charm me with their undercurrent of mystery. + + + + + CHAPTER LXII. + + + +I have already said that I was extraordinarily childish for my years. + +If the personage I then was could but be brought into the presence of +the little Parisian boys of twelve or thirteen, educated according to +the more perfect modern method, who at so early an age declaim, +discuss and harangue, and entertain all sorts of political ideas, I +would, I am sure, be struck dumb by their discourses, and how singular +they would find me and with what disdain they would treat me! + +I am myself astonished at the childishness that I displayed in certain +ways, for in artistic perception and imagination, in spite of my lack +of method, and lack of real knowledge, I was incontestably more +advanced than are the majority of boys of my age; if that youthful +journal, the strip of paper wrapped about a reed in the similitude of +a conjuring-book, of which I spoke a short time ago, were still in +existence it would emphasize twenty fold this pale record, on which it +seems to me there has already fallen the dust of ages. + + + + + CHAPTER LXIII. + + + +My room where I now scarcely ever installed myself to study, and which +I seldom entered except at night to sleep, became, during the +beautiful month of June, my palace of delight, and I went there after +dinner to enjoy the long, and mild, and beautiful twilights. I had +invented a sport which I deemed an improvement upon the rag-rat trick +that the dirty little street urchins whisked, at the end of long +strings, about the feet and legs of the passers-by. My game amused me +greatly and I prosecuted it with vivacity. It would, I think, amuse me +still if I dared play it, and I hope that my trick will be imitated by +all the youngsters who are imprudently allowed to read this chapter. + +On the other side of the street, just opposite my window, and +similarly upon the second floor there lived the good old maid, Miss +Victoire--(she wore a great old-fashioned frilled cap and round +spectacles). I had obtained permission from her to fix to the +fastening of her shutter a string that I then brought all across the +street and into my window, the remainder of this string I rolled upon +a stick, ball-fashion. + +In the evening, as soon as the light waned, a bird of my own +manufacture--a sort of absurd and impossible crow, made out of iron +wire and with black silk wings--came slyly from between my venetian +blinds that I immediately closed after the exit of the creature, this +bird descended in a droll way and posed on the paving stones in the +middle of the street. A ring on which it was suspended, and which +allowed it to slip freely the length of the string, was not visible +because of the dim light, and from time to time I made the crow hop +and skip comically about on the ground. + +And when the passers-by paused to gaze at this unlikely looking bird +that fluttered about so gayly--whiz! I would pull the string that I +held firmly in my hand, and the bird would leap from under their very +noses and mount high in the air. + +Oh! how amused I was, those beautiful evenings, when I peeped out from +behind my venetian blinds; how I laughed to myself over the surprised +exclamations and the bewilderment of those fooled, and how I enjoyed +rehearsing to myself their probable reflections and guesses. And to me +the most astonishing part was that after the first moment of surprise, +the persons whom I tricked laughed as heartily as I; it should be +mentioned that the majority of those passing were neighbors who must +certainly have had some inkling of the mystifying joke about to be +played on them. I was much loved in the neighborhood at that time. Or +if the pedestrians chanced to be sailors, the easy going fellows, +themselves only grown children, were much delighted with my child's +play. + +What will always remain an incomprehensible mystery to me is that in +my family, where we seldom sinned through an excess of reserve towards +each other, they shut their eyes to my trick, and thus tacitly gave me +permission to play it during the entire spring; I am not able to +explain to myself how it chanced that they failed to correct me, and +the years instead of clearing up this mystery only serve to intensify +it. + +That black bird has naturally become one of my many relics; at +intervals, during the past two or three years, I have looked at it; it +is somewhat dingy, but it always recalls to me the beautiful evenings +in June, now vanished, the delicious intoxication of that springtime +of long ago. + + + + + CHAPTER LXXIV. + + + +Those Thursdays at Limoise when the fierce heat of the noon-day sun +overwhelmed everything, and the country side lay asleep and silent +under its pitiless rays, it was my habit to clamber up to the top of +the old wall that enclosed the garden, and there I sat astride and +immovable for a long time. The branching ivy reached to my shoulders +and innumerable flies and locusts buzzed around me. From the height of +this observatory I had a view of the hot and lonely region lying +beyond, of the moorland and woodland, and from there I saw a thin +white veil of mist that was agitated ceaselessly by the waves of heat, +as the surface of a tiny lake is ruffled by the least wind. Those +horizons seen from Limoise still had for me the strange mystery I had +endowed them with in the first summers of my life. The region visible +from the top of the wall was a rather solitary one, and I tried to +make myself believe that the waste land and woodland was a veritable +untrodden country that stretched out indefinitely; and although I now +knew well that about me everywhere there were roads; cultivated +fields, and prosperous villages, I succeeded in clinging to the +illusion that the surrounding country and contiguous lands were wild +and primitive. + +And the better to deceive myself I took care to shut out, by looking +through my fingers folded together spy-glass fashion, all that would +have spoiled for me the impression of loneliness; an old farm house, +for instance, with its bit of cultivated vineyard and smooth road. + +And there all alone, in that silence murmurous with the buzzing of +many insects, distracted by nothing, always turning my hollowed hand +towards the most desolate portion of the landscape, I succeeded in +gaining an impression of distant, tropical countries. + +I had impressions of Brazil particularly, but I do not know why in +those moments of contemplation the neighboring forest always suggested +that country to me. + +In passing I must describe this forest, the first one of all the +earth's forests that I knew, and the one I loved the best: the +straight, slim trunks of the ancient evergreen oaks, of sombre +foliage, were like the columns of a church; not a particle of brush +grew under them, but the dry soil was covered all the year with the +most exquisite short grass, soft and fine as down, and here and there +grew furze, dropwort and other rare flowers that thrive in the shade. + + + + + CHAPTER LXV. + + + +The Iliad was being explained to us in class,--no doubt I would have +loved it, but our master had made it odious by his analysis, his +difficult tasks and his parrot-like recitals;--but suddenly I stopped, +filled with admiration of a famous line, whose end is musical as the +murmur of the waves of the incoming tide as they spread their sheets +of foam upon the pebbly shore. + +"Observe," said the Big Ape, "observe the inceptive harmony." + +Zounds! Yes, I had observed it. Little need to take the trouble to +point out such a sentence to me. + +I also had a great admiration, less justified perhaps, for some lines +from Virgil. + +Since the beginning of the Ecloque I had, with the greatest interest, +followed the two shepherds as they made their way across the fields of +ancient Rome. I could picture it to myself so vividly, those Roman +meadows of two thousand years ago: hot, a little sterile, with +thickets of almost petrified shrubs, and evergreen oaks like the stony +moorland of Limoise, where I had experienced precisely the pastoral +charm that I discovered in this description of a past time. + +Onward went the two shepherds, and suddenly, they perceived that their +journey was half over, "because the tomb of Bianor was immediately +below them . . ." Oh! how vividly I saw that tomb of Bianor disclose +itself to their view. Its old stones, that made a white blot on the +reddish road, were covered with tiny sun-scorched plants, wild thyme +or marjoram, and here and there grew stunted dark foliaged shrubs. And +the sonority of the word Bianoris with which the sentence ended +suddenly and magically evoked for me the musical humming of the +insects that buzzed around the two travellers who, upon that bygone +day in June, walked onward in the great silence and serene +tranquillity of the hot noon enkindled by a younger sun. I was no +longer in the schoolroom; I was in the meadows with the shepherds +walking with them this radiant summer day through the sun-scorched +flowers and grass of a Roman field,--but still all seemed softened and +vague as if looked at through a telescope that had the power to draw +into its line of vision ages long past. + +Who knows? Perhaps if the Big Ape could but have divined the causes +that led to my momentary inattention it might have brought about an +understanding between us. + + + + + CHAPTER LXVI. + + + +One Thursday evening at Limoise, just before the inevitable hour for +my departure, I went up alone to the large, old room on the second +floor in which I slept. First I leaned out of the open window to watch +the July sun sink behind the stony fields and fern heaths that lay +towards the sea, which though very near us was invisible. These +sunsets at the end of my Thursday holidays always overwhelmed me with +melancholy. + +During the last minutes of my stay I felt a desire, one I had never +known before, to rummage in the old Louis XV bookcase that stood near +my bed. There among the volumes in their century-old bindings, where +the worms, never disturbed, slowly bored their galleries, I found a +book made of thick rough old-fashioned paper, and this I opened +carelessly. . . . In it I read, with a thrill of emotion, that from +noon until four o'clock in the afternoon, on the 20th of June, 1813, +south of the equator, in longitude 110 and latitude 15 (between the +tropics, consequently, and in the middle of the South Pacific Ocean) +there was fair weather, a beautiful sea, a fine southeast breeze, and +in the sky many little clouds called "cat-tails," and that alongside +the ship dolphins were passing. + +He who had seen the dolphins pass, and who had recorded the fugitive +cloud forms had doubtless been dead for many years. I knew that the +book was what is called a ship's log-book, one in which seafaring +people write every day. Its appearance did not strike me as strange, +although I had never before had one in my hand. But for me it was a +wonderful and unexpected experience to thus suddenly come into a +knowledge of the aspect of the sea and sky in the midst of the South +Pacific Ocean, at a given time in a year long past. . . . Oh! for a +glimpse of that beautiful and tranquil sea, of those "cat-tails" that +dotted the deep blue arch of the sky, and of those dolphins that +swiftly traversed the lonely southern waters! + +In this sailor's life, in this profession so terrifying (a career +forbidden to me), how many delightful things happened! I had never +until this evening realized it with such intensity. + +The memory of that hasty little reading is the reason why, during my +watches at sea, whenever a helmsman signals a passage of dolphins, I +have always turned my eyes in their direction to watch them; and it +has always given me a peculiar pleasure to note the incident in the +log-book, differing so little from the one in which the sailors of +June, 1813, had written before me. + + + + + CHAPTER LXVII. + + + +During the vacation that followed, our departure for the south and the +mountains enchanted me more than did my first trip there. + +As in the preceding summer we started, my sister and I, at the +beginning of August. While it was no longer a journey of adventure, +the pleasure of returning and again finding there all the things that +had formerly so delighted me surpassed the charm of going forth to +meet the unknown. + +Between the point where the railroad ended and the village in which +our cousins lived, in the course of the long carriage ride, our little +coachman, in venturing to take what he supposed a short cut, lost his +way, and he carried us into the most exquisite forest nooks. The +weather was beautiful and radiant. With what joy I saluted the first +peasant women whom I saw walking along with great copper water-jars +upon their heads, and the first swarthy peasants conversing in the +well remembered dialect, how I rejoiced when we rolled along over the +blood-colored roads, and when the mountains junipers came into view. + +At about noon-time we stopped in a shady valley in a sequestered +village called Veyrac to rest our horses, and we seated ourselves at +the foot of a chestnut tree. There we were attacked by the ducks of +the place, the boldest and most ill bred in the world. They flocked +around us in an unseemly manner, uttering shrill cries and quacking +hideously. As we departed, even after we were in our carriage, these +infuriated creatures followed us; whereupon my sister turned towards +them, and with all the dignity of an old-time traveller outraged by an +inhospitable population exclaimed: "Ducks of Veyrac, be ye accursed!" +And for several years I could not keep a straight face when I +remembered the foolish and prolonged laughter that I indulged in at +the time. Above all I cannot think of that day without regretting the +resplendence of the sun and the blue sky, a resplendence that I never +see now. + +As we drew near we were met on our way at the bridge spanning the +river, by our cousins and the Peyrals. I discovered with pleasure that +my little band was complete. We had all grown taller by several +inches; but we found immediately that we were not otherwise changed, +we were still children ready for the same childish games. + +At night-fall there was a terrific storm. And while the thunder boomed +around us as if it was bombarding the roof of my uncle's house, and +when all the old stone gargoyles in the village were pouring forth +torrents of water that rushed tumultuously over the black pebbles in +the street, we took refuge, the little Peyrals and I, in the kitchen, +and there we made a racket and joyously danced around in a ring. + +It was a very large kitchen, furnished in an old-fashioned way with a +perfect arsenal of burnished copper utensils; every variety of pan and +kettle, shining like pieces of armor, hung on the halls in the order +of their size. It was almost dark, and from the moist earth came the +fresh odor one usually smells after a storm, after a summer rain; and +through the thick iron-barred Louis XIII windows the lurid, green +lightning flashed incessantly and blinded us and compelled us, in +spite of ourselves, to close our eyes. We turned round and round like +mad beings, and sang together: "The star of night whose peaceful +light." . . . It was a sentimental song, never intended for dance +music, but we scanned it drolly and mockingly, and thus made of it an +accommodating and tuneful dance measure. We continued our joyous sport +for I do not know how long a time; we were excited by the noise of the +storm and we whirled around like little dervishes; it was a merry- +making in celebration of my return; it was a fitting way of +inaugurating the holidays; it was a defiance to the Big Ape, and it +was an appropriate prologue to the series of expeditions and childish +sports of every kind that were to recommence, with more ardor than +ever, the next day. + + + + + CHAPTER LXVIII. + + + +The following morning at daybreak when I awoke, a noisy cadence, to +which I was unaccustomed, fell upon my ears; the neighboring weaver +had already commenced, even with the dawn, to work his ancient loom, +and the musical to and fro of its shuttle had roused me. Then after +the first drowsy, dreamy moment I remembered, with overwhelming joy, +that I was at my uncle's in the south; that this was the morning of +the first day; that I had before me the prospect of a whole summer of +out-of-door life and wildest liberty--had August and September, two +months that at present pass as quickly as if they were but two days, +but which then seemed of a fairly respectable duration. With a feeling +of rapture, after I had wholly shaken off my sleep, I came into a full +consciousness of myself and the realities of my life; I felt "joy at +my waking." + +The preceding winter I had read a story of the Indians of the Great +Lakes, and one thing in it had impressed me so deeply that I always +remembered it: an old Indian chief, whose daughter was pining away +because of her love for a white man, had finally consented to give her +to the alien so that she might once more feel "joy at her waking." + +Joy at her waking! Indeed, for some time I had myself noticed that the +moment of waking is always the one in which I had the most distinct +and vivid impression of joy or sorrow; and it is then, at the waking +hour, that one finds it so particularly painful to be without joy; my +first little sorrows and remorses, my anxieties about the future, were +the things that usually obtruded themselves cruelly--however the +feeling of sadness vanished very quickly in those days. + +At a later time I had very gloomy and sad awakenings. And there are +times now when I have moments of terrifying clearness of vision during +which I seem to see, if I may so express it, into the depths of life; +it is at such moments that life presents itself to me without those +pleasing mirages that during the day still delude me; during those +moments I appear to have a more vivid realization of the rapid flight +of the years, the crumbling away of all that I endeavor to hold to, I +almost realize the final unimaginable nothingness, I see the +bottomless pit of death, near at hand, no longer in any way disguised. + +But that morning I had a joyful awaking, and unable to remain quietly +in bed, I rose immediately. So impatient was I to be out that I +scarcely took time to ask myself where I should begin my first day's +round of visits. + +I had all the nooks and corners of the village to see again, the +gothic ramparts and the lovely river; and my uncle's garden to +revisit, where probably, since last year, the rarest butterflies had +become domiciled. I had visits to make to the ancient and curious +houses in the neighborhood, where lived all the kind old women who, in +the past summer, had lavished upon me their most luscious grapes as if +they were my feudal due;--there was in particular a certain Madame +Jeanne, a rich old peasant, who had taken so great a fancy to me that +she liked to humor my every whim, and who, for my amusement, every +time she passed on her way, like Nausicaa, from the washing-place, +looked comically out of the corner of her eyes towards my uncle's +house. And, too, there were the surrounding vineyards, and woods, and +mountain paths; and beyond, Castelnau, rearing its battlements and +towers above the pedestal of chestnuts and oak trees, called me to its +ruins! Where should I run first, and how could I ever weary of so +beautiful a land! + +The sea, to which I was now scarcely ever taken, was for the moment +completely forgotten. + +After these two happy months school was to re-open. I could not bear +to think of it, but its monotony would be broken by a great event, the +return of my brother. His four years were not quite completed; but we +knew that he had already left the "mysterious island," and we expected +him to arrive home in October. For me it would be like becoming +acquainted with a stranger. I was somewhat anxious to know whether he +would love me when he met me, if he would approve of a thousand little +things I did,--how, for instance, my way of playing Beethoven would +please him. + +I thought constantly of his approaching arrival; I was so overjoyed, +and I anticipated with so keen a delight the change his coming would +make in my life, that I did not feel a particle of the melancholy +which usually beset me in the autumn. + +I meant to consult him about a thousand troublous matters, to confide +to him all my anguish and uncertainty in regard to the future; I knew +also that my parents depended upon him to give them definite advice +about me, and expected him to direct me towards a scientific career: +that was the one dark spot upon his return. + +Awaiting his dread decision, I threw aside all care and amused myself +as gayly as possible; I put even less restraint than usual upon myself +during the vacation which I regarded as likely to be the very last of +my childhood. + + + + + CHAPTER LXIX. + + + +After the noon dinner it was the custom in my uncle's house to sit for +an hour or two in the entry-way of the house, that vestibule inlaid +with flagstones and ornamented with a large, burnished, copper +fountain, for it was the coolest place during the heated period of the +day. Here it was almost dark, for everything was closed; two or three +rays of sunshine, in whose light the flies danced, filtered in through +the cracks of the massive Louis XIII door. In the silent village no +one was astir, and one heard there only the everlasting clucking of +the hens,--all other living creatures seemed asleep. + +I, however, did not remain long in the cool vestibule. The bright +sunshine lured me out; and, too, scarcely had I installed myself there +in the circle before I heard a knocking at the street door: the three +little Peyrals had come to fetch me, and to apprise me of their +presence they lifted the old iron knocker that was hot enough to burn +their fingers. + +Then with hats pulled over our eyes and equipped with hammers, staffs +and butterfly-nets we would start out in search of new adventures. +First we passed through the narrow gothic streets paved with pebbles, +then we struck into the paths that lay just beyond the village, paths +that were always covered with wheat-chaff that got into our shoes, and +into which we sank ankle deep; finally we reached the open country, +the vineyards, and the roads that led to the woods, or better still +those that brought us to the river which we forded by means of the +flower-covered islets. + +This wild liberty was a complete avengement for the monotony of my +cribbed and cabined home life, ever the same all the year through; but +I still lacked the companionship of little boys of my own age, I +needed to clash with them,--and, too, this freedom lasted only a +couple of months. + + + + + CHAPTER LXX. + + + +One day I had a great desire, wherefore I do not know, unless out of +pure bravado and the spirit of perversity, to do something unseemly. +After having searched all of one morning for this something I found +it. + +It is well known that the swarms of flies which one finds in the south +during the summer, and which contaminate everything are a veritable +plague. I knew that there was a trap set for them in the middle of my +uncle's kitchen. It was a treacherous pipe of a special shape, at the +bottom of which, in the soapy pan of water there, the flies were +invariably drowned. Now on the particular day in which I felt so +devilish I bethought me of that disgusting blackish mass at the bottom +of the vessel, made up of the thousands of flies drowned during the +past two or three days, and I wondered what sort of toothsome dish I +should make of it, a pancake, perhaps, or better still, an omelette. + +Quickly and nervously, and with a loathing that almost made me vomit, +I poured the pasty black mass into a plate and carried it to the house +of old Madame Jeanne, the only one in the world willing to do anything +and everything for me. + +"A fly omelette! To be sure! Why not! That is very simple!" she +exclaimed. She went immediately to the fire with a frying pan and some +eggs. She gave the unclean mess a good preliminary beating, and then +she placed it on her high and ancient fireplace. As I watched her +procedure I was dismayed and surprised at myself. + +But the three little Peyrals, whom I had met unexpectedly, went into +such ecstasies over my idea, a thing they always did, that I was +fortified; and when the omelette, at just the right time, was turned +out hot upon a plate we started forth triumphantly to carry the +exhibit home to show to our families. We formed a procession in the +order of our respective heights, and as we marched we sang, "The Star +of Night" in voices loud and hoarse enough to summon the devil to +earth. + + + + + CHAPTER LXXI. + + + +In the mountains the end of summer was always a beautiful season, for +the meadows lying at the foot of the hillside forests, already yellow, +were purple with crocuses. Then, too, the vintage commenced and lasted +for about fifteen days,--days of enchantment for us. + +We now spent most of our time in the shady nooks of the woods and +meadows in the neighborhood of the Peyral vineyards; there we had +play-dinners consisting of candy and fruits. We would spread out on +the grass what we considered a most elegant cloth, and this we +decorated, after the old fashion, with garlands of flowers, and we put +on it plates made of yellow and red vine leaves. The vintagers brought +us the most luscious grapes, bunches chosen from among a thousand; +and, with the heat of the sun to aid, we sometimes became a little +tipsy, not, however, made so by sweet wine, for we had drunk none, but +by the juice of the grapes merely, in the self-same fashion as did the +wasps and flies that warmed themselves upon the trellises. . . . + +One morning at the end of September, when the weather was rainy and it +was chilly enough for me to realize that melancholy autumn was near at +hand, I was attracted into the kitchen by the bright wood fire that +leaped gayly in the high, old-fashioned chimney-place. And as I stood +there, idle and out of sorts, because of the rain, I amused myself by +melting a pewter plate and plunging it, in its liquid state, into a +pail of water. + +The result was a shapeless, bright, and silvery-gray lump which very +much resembled silver-ore. I looked at the mass thoughtfully for some +time: an idea germinated, and there and then I planned a new amusement +which became our most delightful pastime during those last days of +vacation. + +That same evening we held a conference on the steps of the great +stairway, and I told the Peyrals that from the aspect of the soil and +the plants I had come to the conclusion that there were silver mines +in this part of the country. As I spoke I assumed the knowing and bold +airs of one of those venturesome scouts, who is usually the principal +personage in old-fashioned stories of American adventure. + +Searching for mines fell well into line with the abilities of my +little band, for often, armed with pick and shovel, they had set out +to discover fossils or rare stones. + +The next day, therefore, half way up the mountain, when we arrived at +a path chosen by me for its appropriateness, for it was lonely and +mysterious, shut in by forest trees and embedded between high, moss- +grown, rocky banks, I stopped my little band peremptorily, as if I +were endowed with the keen scent of an Indian chief. I pretended that +I had here recognized the presence of precious ore-beds; and, in +truth, when we dug in the place I indicated we found the first +nuggets, the melted plate that I had buried there the day before. + +These mines occupied us constantly until the end of my stay. The +Peyrals were convinced and full of amazement, and although I spent +some time each morning in the kitchen melting plates and covers to +feed our vein of silver, I very nearly deluded myself into believing +in the reality of the mine. + +The isolated silent spot, so exquisitely beautiful, where these +excavations took place, and the melancholy but enchanting serenity of +the end of summer, gave a rare charm to our little dream of adventure. +We were, however, most amusingly secret and mysterious in regard to +our discovery; we considered it a tribal secret, and we cherished it +as such. + +Our riches, mixed in with some of the red mountain soil, we hoarded in +an old trunk in my uncle's attic as if the latter were an Ali Baba's +cave. + +We pledged ourselves to leave it there during the winter, until the +next vacation, at which time we counted on making additions to our +treasure. + + + + + CHAPTER LXXII. + + + +In the first week of October we received a joyous telegram from our +father bidding us leave for home as speedily as possible. My brother, +who was returning to Europe by a packet-boat on its way from Panama, +was to disembark at Southampton; we had but just time to reach home if +we wished to be there to welcome him. + +We arrived the evening of the third day just in time, for my brother +was expected a few hours later on the night train. I had barely time +to put into his room, in their accustomed places, the various little +trinkets that he had four years previously confided to my care, before +the hour set for our departure to the station to meet him. To me his +return, announced so unexpectedly, did not seem a reality, and I was +so excited that for two nights I scarcely slept at all. + +This is why, in spite of my impatience to see my brother, I fell +asleep at the station; when he appeared it seemed a sort of dream to +me. I embraced him timidly, for he was very different from my mental +image of him. He was bronzed and bearded, his manner of speech was +more rapid, and, with a slightly smiling, slightly anxious expression, +he regarded me fixedly, as if to ascertain what the years had done for +me, and to deduce from that what my future was to be. + +When I returned home I fell asleep standing; it wad the dead +sleepiness of a child fatigued by a long journey, against which it is +futile to struggle, and I was carried to my bed. + + + + + CHAPTER LXXIII. + + + +I awaked the following morning with a feeling of joyousness that +penetrated to the very depths of my being, and as I remembered the +cause for my happiness my eyes fell upon an extraordinary object +standing on a table in my room. It was evidently a very slim canoe +with a balance beam and sails. Then my gaze encountered other +unfamiliar objects scattered about: necklaces of shells strung on +human hair, head-dresses of feathers, ornaments appertaining to a dark +and primitive savagery; it was as if distant Polynesia had come to me +during my sleep. My brother, it seems had already begun to open his +cases, and while I slept he had slipped noiselessly into my room and +grouped around me these ornaments intended for my museum. + +I jumped out of bed quickly so that I might go and find him, for I had +scarcely seen him the evening before. + + + + + CHAPTER LXXIV. + + + +And it seems I hardly saw him during those hurried weeks that he spent +with us. Of that period, which lasted so short a time, I have very +confused visions, similar to those one has of things seen during a +rapid journey. I remember vaguely that we lived more gayly, and that +his presence among us brought many young people to our house. I +remember also that he seemed at times to be preoccupied and absorbed +by things entirely outside the family sphere; perhaps he had longings +for the tropics, for the "delicious island," or it may be he dreaded +his early departure. + +Sometimes I held him captive near the piano by playing for him the +haunting music of Chopin which I had but just begun to understand. He +was disquieted however by my playing, and he said that Chopin's music +was too exuberant and at the same time too enervating for me. He had +come among us so recently that he was better able to judge of me than +were the others, and he realized perhaps that my intellect was in +danger of becoming warped through the nature of the artistic and +intellectual effort it put forth; no doubt he thought Chopin and the +"Donkey's Skin" equally dangerous, and considered that I was becoming +excessively affected and abnormal in spite of my fits of childish +behavior. I am sure that he thought even my amusements were fanciful +and unhealthy. Be that as it may, he one day, to my great joy, decreed +that I should learn to ride horseback, but that was the only change +his coming made in my education. Cowardice prompted me to defer +discussion of those weighty questions appertaining to my future which +I was so anxious to talk over with him; I preferred to take my time, +and, too, I shrunk from making a decision, and thus by my silence I +sought to prolong my childhood. Besides, I did not consider it a +pressing matter after all, inasmuch as he was to be with us for some +years. . . . + +But one fine morning, although we had reckoned so largely on keeping +him, there came news of a higher rank and an order from the naval +department commanding him to start without delay for a distant part of +the orient, where an expedition was organizing. + +After a few days which were mainly spent in preparing for that +unforeseen campaign he left us as if borne away by a gust of wind. + +Our adieus were less sad this time, for we did not expect him to be +absent more than two years. . . . In reality it was his eternal +farewell to us; whatever is left of his body lies at the bottom of the +Indian Ocean, towards the middle of the Bay of Bengal. + +When he had departed, while the noise of the carriage that was bearing +him away could still be heard, my mother turned to me with an +expression of love that touched me to the very innermost fibre of my +being; and as she drew me to her she said with the emphasis of +conviction: "Thank God, at least we shall keep you with us!" + +Keep me! . . . They would keep me! . . . Oh! . . . I lowered my head +and turned my eyes away, for I could feel that their expression had +changed, had become a little wild. I could not respond to my mother +with a word or a caress. + +Such a serene confidence upon her part distressed me cruelly, for the +moment in which I heard her say, "We shall keep you," I understood, +for the first time in my life, what a firm hold on my mind the project +of going away had taken--of going even farther than my brother, of +going everywhere upon the face of the earth. + +A sea-faring life terrified me, and I relished the idea of it as +little as ever. To a little being like me, so greatly attached to my +home, bound to it by a thousand sweet ties, the very thought of it +made my heart bleed. And besides, how could I break the news of such a +decision to my parents, how give them so much pain and thus flagrantly +outrage their wishes! But to renounce all my plans, always to remain +in the same place, to be upon this earth, and to see nothing of it-- +what a squalid, disenchanting future! What was the use to live, what +the good of growing up for that? + +And in that empty parlor with its disordered chairs, one even +overturned, and while I was still under the dark spell of our sad +farewells, there beside my mother, leaning against her with eyes +turned away and with soul overwhelmed with sorrow, I suddenly +remembered the old log-book which I had read at sunset last spring at +Limoise. The short sentences written down upon the old paper with +yellow ink came slowly back to me one after the other with a charm as +lulling and perfidious as that exercised by a magic incantation: + +"Fair weather . . . beautiful sea . . . light breeze from the south- +east . . . Shoals of dolphins . . . passing to larboard." + +And with a shudder of almost religious awe, with pantheistic ecstasy, +my inward eye saw all about me the sad and vast blue splendor of the +South Pacific Ocean. + +A great calm, tinged with melancholy, fell upon us after my brother's +departure, and to me the days were monotonous in the extreme. + +They had always thought of sending me to the Polytechnic school, but +it had not been decided upon irrevocably. The wish to become a sailor, +which had obtruded itself upon me almost against my will, charmed and +terrified me in an almost equal degree; I lacked the courage necessary +to settle such a grave matter with myself, and I always hesitated to +speak of it. The upshot was that I decided to reflect over it until my +next vacation, and thus by my irresolution and delay I secured to +myself a few more months of careless childhood. + +I still led as solitary a life as ever; it was very difficult for me +to change the bent that my mind had taken in spite of my mental +distress and in spite of my latent desire to roam far and wide over +the earth. More than ever I stayed in the house and busied myself +painting stage scenery, and playing Chopin and Beethoven; to all +appearances I was tranquil and deeply absorbed in my dreams, and I +became ever more and more attached to my home, to its every nook and +corner, even to the stones in its walls. It is true that now and again +I took a horseback ride, but I always went with a groom and never with +children of my own age--I still had no young playmates. + +My second year at college was much less painful than my first; it +passed more quickly, and moreover I had formed an attachment for two +of my classmates, my elders by a year or two, the only ones who had +not the preceding year treated me disdainfully. The thin ice once +broken, there had sprung up between us an ardent and sentimental +friendship; we even called each other by our baptismal names, +something that was contrary to school etiquette. Since we never saw +each other except in the schoolroom, we were obliged to communicate in +mysterious whispers under the teacher's eye, our relations, +consequently, were inalterably courteous and did not resemble the +ordinary friendship between boys. I loved them with all my heart; I +would have allowed myself to be cut into bits for them; and, in all +sincerity, I imagined that this affection would endure throughout my +life. + +My excessive exclusiveness caused me to treat the others in the class +with great indifference and haughtiness; still a certain superficial +self, necessary for social purposes, had already begun to take shallow +root, and I knew better now how to remain on good terms with them, and +at the same time to keep my true self hidden from them. + +I generally contrived to sit between my two friends, Andre and Paul. +If, however, we were separated we continually and slyly exchanged +notes written in a cipher to which we alone had the key. + +These letters were always love confidences: "I have seen her to-day; +she wore a blue dress trimmed with gray fur, and she had a lark's wing +on her turban, etc."--For we had chosen sweethearts who became the +subject of our very poetical prattle. + +Something of the ridiculous and whimsical invariably marks this +transition age in a boy's life, and for that reason I have thought it +worth while to transcribe the boyish note. + +Before going further I wish to say that my transition periods have +lasted longer than do those of the majority of men, and during them I +have been carried from one extreme to another; and, too they have +caused me to touch all the perilous rocks along life's way,--I am also +fully conscious of the fact that until almost my twenty-fifth year I +had eccentric and absurd manners. . . . + +But now I will continue with my confidences respecting our three love +affairs. + +Andre was ardently in love with a young lady almost six years older +than himself who had already been introduced into society,--I believe +that his affair was a case of real and deep affection. + +I had chosen Jeanne for my sweetheart, and my two friends were the +only beings who knew my secret. To do as they did, although I +considered it a little silly, I wrote her name in cipher on the covers +of my copy-books; in every way and manner I sought to persuade myself +of the ardor of my passion, but I am bound to admit that the whole +thing was a little artificial, for the amusing coquetry that Jeanne +and I had indulged in early in our acquaintance had developed into a +true and great friendship, a hereditary friendship I may call it, a +continuation of that felt by our ancestors long before our birth. No, +my first real love, of which I will soon speak, was for a being seen +in a dream. + +As for Paul--alas! His heart affair was very shocking to me, for it +did particular violence to the ideas that I then had. He was in love +with a little shop-girl who worked in a perfumery store, and on his +Sunday holidays he gazed at her through the show-case window. It is +true that she was named Stella or Olympia, and that raised her +somewhat in my esteem; and, too, Paul took pains to surround his love +with an ethereal and poetic atmosphere in order to make it more +acceptable to us. At the bottom of his cipher notes he constantly +wrote, for our benefit, the sweetest rhymed verses dedicated to her, +wherein her name, ending in "a," recurred again and again, like the +perfume of musk. + +In spite of my great affection for him I could not but smile pityingly +over his poetic effusions. And I think that it is partly because of +them that I have never, at any epoch in my life, had the least +inclination to write a single line of verse. My notes were always +written in a wild and free prose that outraged every rule. + + + + + CHAPTER LXXVI. + + + +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 maiden + Had 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. + + + + + CHAPTER LXXVII. + + + +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. + + + + + CHAPTER LXXVIII. + + + +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 tinyness + Of 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. + + + + + CHAPTER LXXIX. + + + +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. + + + + + CHAPTER LXXX. + + + +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. + + + + + CHAPTER LXXXI. + + + +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 encoutner 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!" + + + + + CHAPTER LXXXII. + + + +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. + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, THE STORY OF A CHILD *** + +This file should be named fchld10.txt or fchld10.zip +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, fchld11.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, fchld10a.txt + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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