The Story of a Child Part 15

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 cla.s.sified 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 pa.s.sed 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-fas.h.i.+oned 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 a.s.surance 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 a.s.sembled for so many years; and apart from that reason I hold it dear because it is a.s.sociated 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 wors.h.i.+p, 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 enc.u.mbering 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 cla.s.ses, I came in contact with the naval students. To give themselves a sailor-like appearance they wore red sashes, and they constantly drew s.h.i.+ps and anchors on their copy-books.

I never dreamed of that career for myself; scarcely oftener than once or twice had such a thought pa.s.sed 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 a.s.sumed, 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 b.u.t.terflies from my uncle's garden that I had arranged and pinned under gla.s.s, 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 b.u.t.terfly! There were times when I experienced a bitter pleasure in seeking to understand the great sadness that it caused me. It was in the gla.s.s 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 b.u.t.terfly formed a luminous whole that shone out brightly in the gray twilight, and it caused the other b.u.t.terflies 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 suns.h.i.+ne 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 a.s.sociation between the b.u.t.terfly, 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 b.u.t.terfly 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 a.s.sociation 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 b.u.t.terfly in all the freshness and radiance of its two strange colors, mummified, it is true, but as brilliant looking as ever under its gla.s.s, 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 emba.s.sy somewhere in the Orient, would doubtless, should they read this, be much astonished to learn what value circ.u.mstances 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 fas.h.i.+on:

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 m.u.f.f) 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 ill.u.s.trated 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.