The Story of a Child Part 7

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, pa.s.sed 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 a.s.sociated; 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 pa.s.sed 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 friends.h.i.+p that had its inception in the country generations before our time; it was a friends.h.i.+p 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 pa.s.sed 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 coa.r.s.e 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 b.u.t.ter, 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 pa.s.sed in the distant lands and n.o.ble s.h.i.+ps; 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 gra.s.shoppers, 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 pa.s.sages, 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 ill.u.s.trating 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 mult.i.tude 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 ma.s.ses, 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 ill.u.s.trated magazine. I saluted as old acquaintances two G.o.ds 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 pa.s.sed 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 ill.u.s.trator 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.