Chapter X: Book III: I (3)

I had, however, no occasion to make use of the provision of energy which I was laying in against my martyrdom. As we walked along father merely asked me, without raising his voice,

“Have you often been to that café?”

“Sometimes.”

“Never set foot in it again.”

I felt that indeed I never could set foot in it again. But would that be all my punishment? We were walking side by side, very fast. Though he gave no sign of what he was thinking, I understood,--I can not tell how--that a great tempest was inwardly agitating him. He had it in his power to crush me, to break me in two, and he kept silent. Thus we crossed the Market Place, and I seemed to myself like one of those criminals whom I had seen escorted to prison by a gendarme. If only Nazzarena did not see me! To me she represented the life of liberty, as I was slavery in person.

At last we reached the door of the house. Before opening it father turned to me, covering me from head to foot with a look, under which I hung my head in spite of myself, like one guilty.

“Poor child!” he said--it was Martinod’s very expression--“what are they trying to make of you?”

In my tense condition this sudden pity conquered my rebellion, and I was on the point of throwing myself into his arms with tears. But he had already regained his self-control, and in his tone of command he went on:

“You simply must obey. You simply must.”

I at once hardened my heart again. He was affirming his authority: and though he had certainly not abused it, there was for me only the sacred war for independence.

Mother, whose anxious shadow I had distinguished behind the window, was watching for our return, and came to the top of the steps to meet us.

“He was there,” said my father simply. “I was not mistaken.”

“Oh, my God!” she murmured, as if she could not have imagined so tragic a misfortune.

Aunt Deen, who was close behind her, lifted up her hands to heaven:

“It’s not possible! It’s not possible!”

Beyond this I was not scolded. With his will or against his will the prodigal son had been brought back. But, far from being grateful for this indulgence, which now I better understand as being due to the uncertainty of my parents as to the influences to which I had been subject, and the best way of winning me back, I tried to revive with all my recovered strength the love-pain which had been dulled by all these incidents, saying over and over to myself,

“Nazzarena is going to-morrow. Nazzarena is going to-morrow.”

V

THE DOUBLE LIFE

I HARDLY slept that night, and in my half slumber I confused the holy war for independence with my loss of Nazzarena. My love was a part of that liberty which grandfather vaunted, and for which he had carried a gun. When morning came it found me firmly resolved not to go to school, but to take my last chance of being present when the circus troop departed. The farewell of the evening before had been disappointing. Not being prepared, I had found nothing to say. Surely, things couldn’t end that way.

I complained of a headache, and found ready credence. I understood that I was supposed to be upset by the scene in the Café of the Navigators. Aunt Deen even brought me secretly a frothing and tasty mulled egg, good for headaches, and so delicious that I enjoyed it in spite of my grief--at which I was inwardly humiliated.

“You’ll stay in bed till noon,” she said, as she carried away the cup, adding--she, too!--

“Poor child!”

At which my gratitude to her immediately vanished, for I had no idea of being considered a child any longer, since I was in love.

As soon as she was gone I dressed hastily, but not without a certain care, and ran up to the tower chamber, where grandfather received me with surprise, and some signs of pleasure.

“They let you come up?” he asked.

Why should he ask? I had asked permission of no one. He merely shrugged his shoulders and became the philosopher once more--“Oh, it’s all the same to me.”

The four windows of the tower commanded all the roads. It was my plan to watch from this lookout for the train of waggons. They were loaded, they would advance slowly. I calculated that I should have time to overtake them. Which way would they go? I had no notion. I imagined that they would take the road for Italy, and I watched that one especially.

I had stationed myself before one of the windows, half hidden by a piece of furniture, when there came a knock at the door and father entered. I thought he had come for me, and I at once knew that in spite of my resolutions I should not resist. He had the same calm and irresistible air of authority that he had had the evening before; but, absorbed in his purpose, he did not so much as see me, and as he walked directly to grandfather he even turned his back to me. Unless I intervened he would not know I was there. After a brief but courteous salutation he showed the newspaper he had in his hand--a local journal.

“This paper announces that you are presenting yourself for election at the head of the list of the Left. Is that so, father?”

I could divine under the interrogative form of the simple phrase that he was inwardly boiling with restrained anger.

At the gate of the town there was a blank wall overlooking the lake, which was always swept by waves on windy or stormy days. My school fellows and I used sometimes to amuse ourselves by running across between two waves, at the risk of being wet by spray or even drenched by some larger wave. On certain days when the storm, was severe, such bravado was impossible. We used to say then that the tempest-tossed lake was smoking. I had the sensation now that my way would be barred in the same manner.

How can I have forgotten one traitor word of the conversation that followed? Grandfather, according to his habit, merely replied--at once gently and bravely (he detested scenes and usually avoided them, but Martinod’s cowardice was not his style):

“I am free, I suppose.”

“No one is free,” replied my father, with a determined evenness of voice which chilled me to the marrow. “All of us depend upon one another. And you are aware that you are presenting yourself against me.”

This time grandfather’s retort was more sharp. He would not give way, he would defend himself. At last!

“I am presenting myself against no one,” he replied. “I simply present myself--that is all. And I hinder no one from presenting himself. I say again, Michel, every one is free to act according to his good pleasure.”

With an eloquence which gradually grew warm, and which he then interrupted, as if determined not to depart from the most respectful form of speech, constantly struggling to control himself against the vehemence of his own words, father sought to convince him by a line of argument which even at this distance I believe I can recall. Why this candidacy at the last moment when grandfather had never dreamed of taking any part in politics, and when he knew that his son was the head of the conservative party? How was it that he did not see that this was a manœuvre of Martinod, who was only too happy to take revenge for the blow he had received, and to effect the disintegration of the Rambert family? Surely no one would allow himself to be taken in Martinod’s coarse trap!

“And besides,” he concluded, “we can not be candidates against one another.”

Grandfather’s little laugh accompanied his answer: “Oho! Why not? It will be something new, and for my part I see no harm in it.”

“Because a family can not be divided.”

“A family! A family! You always have that word in your mouth. Individuals are of some account, too, I suppose. And besides, why aren’t your convictions the same as mine, since you are my son?”

“You forget that my convictions are the same as those of all our family down to your father.”

“Yes, the nurseryman. You forget the soldier of the Emperor ...”

“He served France. France comes first. I do not include those who emigrated.”

“And your great uncle Philippe Rambert, the _sans-culotte_?”

“Don’t let us speak of him; he is our shame. Every family has its tradition. Ours, until you, was simple and fine. ‘God and the King.’”

“Well, liberty is enough for me. Once for all, I leave you your way; let me have mine.”

“But I repeat to you that the solidarity of our name and our race lays an obligation upon you. Besides, your liberty is a mere chimera. We are all in a state of dependence. Will you force me to remind you that I have accepted this dependence with all its cost? The very house which shelters us, and which I have saved, is a witness to the permanence and unity of the family under one roof.”

By degrees the conversation became a battle. Father seemed to me so big and powerful that he could have crushed grandfather with a snap of the finger, and yet grandfather held out against him, with his sharp little voice, and with a vigour such as I hardly recognised in him. To see them thus drawn up against each other frightened me and gave me horrible torment. In my new-born rebellion against authority my heart was with grandfather. I pictured to myself, under Nazzarena’s features, that liberty of which they were speaking in attack and defence. It seemed to me that I should be committing a cowardly act like that of Martinod in the Café des Navigateurs when he took off his hat in obedience to orders, showing his white, terrified face, if I did not intervene in behalf of my companion, my comrade in walks, who had transmitted to me as a brilliant inheritance--the only one he had to give--his love of simple nature, of the wandering life, of that independence which proudly refuses to submit to rule, and perhaps also that love of love which by itself alone includes all these. I did not conceal from myself the risk I was running. I foresaw the punishment which would follow, and yet I came forward like a little martyr asking for death.

“Grandfather is free!” I cried at the top of my voice.

I had thought to utter a tremendous shout, but I could hardly hear my own voice, and was astonished and vexed that I had not made more noise. Nevertheless, I perceived the immediate effect, which though quite enough to satisfy me, was far from reassuring. My father had turned suddenly, amazed at my presence and audacity. This time the road was closed, like that of the lakeside on stormy days. He gazed at us both by turns as if to discover some complicity, some understanding between us. Face to face with him we were really just nothing at all. He was strong enough to crush us both. His eyes flashed fire; his voice would roll over us like thunder; the storm that was about to overwhelm us would be terrible.

Why did he keep silent? What was he waiting for? Still he said nothing, and the silence became more distressing, more tragic. I could hear my own terror like the tick tock of a clock.

Having taken time to regain his self-control, by what must have been a superhuman effort, he turned from me that gaze that so terrified me, and spoke to grandfather:

“Very well,” he said, so calmly and gently that it disconcerted me; “I am no longer a candidate. We will not amuse the city with the sight of our divisions. But I will permit myself to give you one bit of advice. By my retirement Martinod will have secured what he wants; that was all he was after; now do not permit yourself to be any longer the tool of the man who has slandered me; do you on your side give up this candidacy, which is not at all in your line.”

If grandfather was surprised by this change of tactics, he did not show it in the least.

“Oh, it would be a great mistake for you to retire. You would perhaps have been elected, and as for me, it’s all one. My principal object is to disavow your political opinions. The family can’t command our ideas.”

Father seemed to hesitate a moment as to resuming the subject before deciding to let it go. He let it go because there was another matter even nearer to his heart.

“Let us say no more about it,” he said. “Something of far greater importance has been going on in my house, something that I can not tolerate. You have robbed me of this child whom I entrusted to you.”

The conflict was suddenly taking another form, and I had become its object. In a flash arose before me the scene when I was setting out for my first walk after my convalescence. We were all three upon the doorstep. Father was putting my hand into grandfather’s with the bewildering words, _Here is my son--it is the future of the house_. And grandfather answered with his little laugh, _Don’t worry, Michel, no one will rob you of him_. What did they mean? How could any one rob him of me?

“How absurd!” grandfather was saying. “I never robbed any one of anything. So I am accused of stealing children, am I? Why not of eating them?”

Mockery and irony were, however, too weak a weapon not to be broken in the attack that followed. Not one detail of that scene has faded from my memory. I can see them both, one strong and high-coloured, in the fulness of strength and vigour, and yet uttering such a groan as trees give forth under the woodman’s axe, the other so old, fragile and shrivelled, and yet all insolence, holding up his head and jeering, and I between the two like the stake in a game they were playing.

“Yes,” father replied; “I gave you my son to make him well, not to lead him astray. You yourself promised to do nothing which might one day put him in opposition to our household and religious traditions. Have you kept your promise? I have for some time been doubtful as to what was going on in this little head. I spoke to Valentine about it, and learned that she too was fearful of this misfortune, though in her respect for you she dreaded to make the mistake of attributing an unfortunate influence to you. I do not know how you have managed to take possession of the child’s mind. But I can not but know that you have been taking Francis to the very place where our opponents are in the habit of meeting, and where they take advantage of your weakness and your generosity.”

“I can’t permit you--” grandfather tried to interrupt.

“Of your generosity,” the voice went on more firmly, “or of mine. This morning I received a bill from that place. It is a large one. Martinod no doubt thinks it a joke to treat his heelers at my expense.”

“Who sent you the bill?”

“The proprietor of the café. To whom should he send it? He brought it himself, and by way of argument he simply said, ‘The boy had some of it.’ My son was a partaker as well as my father; I am responsible, since, for my part, I believe in the solidarity of the family. I paid for Casenave, whose body bears already the promise of a drunkard’s death; for Gallus and Merinos, poor wretches, incapable of the slightest work; for that idle Galurin and that scoundrel Martinod. Paying is of no consequence--I have been through worse than that, as you know. But what errors have you taught this child? I must know all, now, that I may uproot them from his heart like weeds from the garden. Where is he going? What will he make of his life with that utopia of liberty to which every hour of real life gives the lie--without the stern discipline of home, without our faith? Don’t you know that what maintains our race, every race, is the spirit of the family? Has not life taught you that?”

I was moved by the tone in which he spoke. Always sensitive to the melody of words, I caught them as they were uttered, and by them I can now easily rise to the ideas which they expressed but which then passed over my head.

“Have you finished?” asked grandfather, with an impertinence that moved me to admiration.

“Yes, I have finished. I beg pardon for having raised my voice in the presence of this child. He should at least know--you can bear witness to that--that I have always been a respectful son.”

“Oh, you have paid my debts. And you are still paying them.”

“Is that all? And have you not at all times had the support of my filial affection?”

“Of your protection.”

“My protection is extended only to shield you from those who desire your ruin. And can’t you understand that in withdrawing this child from my authority, disarming him for future conflicts, you are preparing the way for the ruin of us all?”

Grandfather exclaimed, “Oh! oh!”--and went on in his turn:

“I should like to know what you are blaming me for. I took the boy to walk when he needed it, and instilled into him the love of nature.”

“And not the love of his home.”

“Is it my fault that he prefers my society? I never try to teach, for my part--I don’t go about preaching at all times and seasons subordination, tradition, the principles of religion. I simply have respect for life, for liberty if you prefer the word.”

“But liberty is not life. It destroys everything that should be preserved.”

“Oh, don’t let us go over that discussion. What has happened to your son happened to mine.”

“To me?”

“Yes, to you. When you were little another influence was substituted for mine. The magistrate, the nurseryman, the lover of roses--”

“Your father.”

“Yes; he gave you a taste for trimmed trees, raked alleys, for laws, human and divine, and what more!”

“Why do you lay it up against me that I am like all our race?”

“I saw you changing under my very eyes. Do you know whether I too did not suffer to see it?”

“Oh, you were always so detached from me, and from--”

My father did not finish his sentence, and I shall not finish it now, though I am only too fearful of having discovered its meaning. The respect which he then maintained lays its command upon me, even at this distance. They had both laid bare a hidden wound, which had never quite ceased to bleed. They stood there face to face with that memory between them, terrified perhaps with what they were discovering in the past, not wishing to go farther before me, when an unexpected relief arrived.

Mother came in. She had probably heard their voices from her room and had hastened, all a-tremble, to prevent the conflict going farther. With her came the household peace.

“What is the matter?” she asked gently.

Her mere presence had parted them, and it was impressed upon me that the conversation would have no further interest for any one.

“I am here to claim my son,” said father.

“Take him, take him,” said grandfather, abandoning me to my fate. But he could not refrain from adding, defiantly:

“Take him back if you can.”

“He ought not to be parted from God,” said my mother simply, remembering the time I had failed to come to Mass. Then, feeling that this was not the place for me, she pushed me toward them, as a token of reconciliation, with the words:

“Kiss them, and go down to Aunt Deen.”

I obeyed, and after being negligently or reluctantly kissed I rushed down stairs, not caring how the peace was made, thinking only of Nazzarena who was going away. A little later I heard some one in the garden calling me, but I did not answer.

I flew to the chestnut grove on the edge of the domain, and scrambled upon the wall, near the breach that one of the trees had once made merely by the push of its roots, and which had been closed by a grating. From this point I could see the road to Italy. Only one chance was left to me--would the circus troop go that way? I waited long, but not in vain.

They are coming, they are coming! First the waggons carrying the tent, the benches, and all the accessories. What wretched horses were drawing them! I looked about for Nazzarena’s black courser, but he was not to be distinguished from the rest of the sorry jades. Then came the _roulottes_ that the folk lived in. Smoke was rising from one or another of the slender chimneys. They were getting dinner ready for the long journey. On one of the rear balconies an old woman was combing a little girl’s hair, the well known parroquet beside them. I was looking, with all my eyes I was looking, for the blond hair of my beloved.

Ah, I saw her at last! It was she, there, bareheaded--her clear-cut face and golden tint. She was herself driving one of the waggons. A mission of importance had been entrusted to her. She held her whip upright in the air, but she loved animals too much to strike them. She was sitting very straight, holding her head proudly--how lovely were the lines of her throat! Why had I never noticed that before? I had never really seen her, so to speak--I must see her, I must see her!

When she emerged from the shadow of the chestnuts the sun made a golden nimbus through her curly hair, that seemed to blend with the light, so that one could not tell where her curls began or the light ended. Beside her on the seat sat a little boy. They were talking to one another, laughing together. I saw her white teeth, but her glance, her golden glance, would she not turn it toward me? Nazzarena, Nazzarena, don’t you feel that I am here, so close to you, perched upon the wall, this wall just above you?

She laughed, she was passing, she had passed. Now the roof of the _roulotte_ hid her. I had not called her, she had not looked at me. Was it possible that I no longer saw her face, nor her eyes, nor her golden colour? Is it possible that so tremendous a thing lasted only a tiny little minute?

My heart was bursting in my breast, and I sat there motionless. Why did I not leap from the wall to the road? Why did I not run after her? Was I nailed to my place? Now I knew that she was lost to me; now I knew that she was always lost to me. Like the shepherd leading his flock to the mountain, whose chance word taught me to know desire, so she, only by going away, taught me the pain of love-partings.

The pain of love-partings is fixed for me in that picture, a little boy astride of the wall of his ancestral home, and a little girl who in the morning light goes away along the road, goes away without turning her head....

How fast we hold to our memories! Long after, when I had become the master, the farmer came to ask permission to cut down that tree which had covered her with its shadow that last time. “Monsieur,” he urged, “the leaves are rusty, it is all rotten inside, it bears no more fruit, it is losing value every day, and before long it won’t bring anything.” I resisted his entreaties, alleging vague reasons. How make an honest farmer understand that one would preserve a dead chestnut tree merely because a little gipsy passed under it, so many years ago that one dares not count them? If there are inexplicable things, this surely is one.

My man wouldn’t give up. “Monsieur, Monsieur, one of these fine days it will fall and break down the wall.” I opine that a wall may be replaced. “Monsieur, Monsieur, one of these fine days it will crush some one passing by.” Come, that’s more serious. A passer-by can’t be made over again. Oh, well, let’s be reasonable. If it falls, it will crush nothing but my heart.

I gave the order to cut down the witness of my first love sorrow. I leaned over the hole which its torn-up roots left in the earth, and was not surprised that it occupied so much room. Now the newly-built wall has closed up the breach, and I feel myself more than ever shut up within my property. As one advances in life, it seems that the surrounding walls draw in.

Nature changes before we do. Nature dies before we do. Little by little we lose all that gave the past its character. Nothing is left to bear witness to the truth of our memories. Little by little other shadows than those of trees descend upon us. And it is hard to believe that one has been--as perhaps every one was once--a boy astride of a wall, not knowing whether he will jump over, to the free life, to the young girl who is laughing, to love, or whether he will go back, like a good boy, to The House....

VI

A WALK WITH FATHER

DURING my long convalescence, as I was not permitted to read all the time, I had constructed, with the aid of Aunt Deen, who used patiently to put on her glasses, which she was not fond of wearing, in order to be more accurate in the use of her big scissors, which sometimes gave an unlucky slip in the cardboard--all sorts of edifices, châteaux, farmhouses, cottages, and even cathedrals. I used to set them up on a great table which had been appropriated to me. The whole represented to my mind a town which my lead soldiers were to besiege. These soldiers, some of them a legacy from my brother Bernard, who even as a small child had begun to make a collection of uniforms, others which had been brought to me some Christmas Eve by the war-like Little Jesus, were innumerable; there were whole regiments of them, large and tiny, thin and plump, infantry, cavalry and artillery. Among the cavalry some were of one piece with their horses, others were detachable, a sharp pointed appendix in their rear permitting them to be fixed at will upon the perforated backs of their horses. One evening there was a tragic assault. The detached general (he was one of those provided with an appendix) had been the first to enter the breach, after which he remounted his chestnut charger, which had been by I know not what subterfuge hoisted into the interior. In the excitement of victory I set fire to the four corners of the conquered city, and when I sought to check its ravages it was too late. In another minute the fire had consumed everything, and all those houses that had cost me so many weeks’ work, and upon which I had so prided myself, were only a heap of black ashes. I was severely reprimanded for having so nearly burned the furniture, and yet I just sat there in stupefied amazement at the rapidity of the burning, compared with the time it had taken me to build.

The abrupt end of my first love affair, that poor little minute in which it was given me to see Nazzarena in the sunlight--caused me a like amazement, a like discouragement. Day after day I had been building up within myself my love story, so vague at first and then so rich and serious, continually adding something to it--a smile, a word, a meeting, and even a bit of scoffing on her part; now it was admiration for her feats of horsewomanship--now that I had merely passed through the Market Square and seen her _roulotte_. She had filled a larger place in my life than I suspected, and now nothing more happened. This void, so new to me, was harder to bear than real pain. Unavailingly I tried to shake it off, for I could not as yet imagine how much of comfort one may have remembering things. How should I have known that it is possible to live outside of the present moment? All that was left to me of Nazzarena gone, Nazzarena forever lost, it was less the thought of her than an all pervading lassitude caused by her absence--a lassitude which was dear to me, in which I seemed to find her again, and which made me incapable of taking an interest in anything whatever.

This condition of mind prevented my paying much attention to the changes which were taking place at our house. I accommodated myself to them without effort and every one spoke of my yielding disposition. Since the tower scene a certain embarrassment had existed between my father and my grandfather, which only my mother’s tact rendered endurable to either. Though I had not been formally forbidden, I ceased to walk out with grandfather or even to go to his room. He would shut himself up a good part of the day to play on his violin. When we assembled at table he made no attempt to come near me,--it was as if he had entirely given up our intimacy. That seemed to me somewhat ungrateful, in view of the important part I had taken in defending him. Meal times became stupid. One held aloof, another was absorbed in thought. I understood that both of them, by a tacit understanding, had retired from the municipal campaign. No one dared to speak of the elections, which were close at hand, but the notices posted on the walls which I read on the way to school, told me how things were. Martinod’s name appeared, and even Galurin’s, but Pour-the-drink and the two artists had been left out. Aunt Deen talked to herself on the staircase of extraordinary events and horrible traitors. In the end Martinod had accomplished his purpose: the candidate whom he dreaded, the only one he dreaded, had refused to run.

I also understood that grandfather had not gone again to the Café of the Navigators, either by way of observing the truce, or to avoid entreaties to which he would doubtless have been inclined to yield. When he heard that father had been called to the bedside of Casenave, who was delirious, he seemed surprised and even moved; he had therefore not seen that old companion.

“Casenave ill!” he exclaimed. “He must have drunk too much.”

At luncheon father announced to us that Casenave was dead.

“I warned him,” he said. “He ought to have given up the bottle long ago.”

“He chose for himself,” said grandfather.

He chose for himself! That was enough to excuse and justify all actions, good or bad, and so I understood it. I saw a reply spring to my father’s lips, but he repressed it, and merely added:

“I have warned Tem Bossette. He will come to the same end, if he does not take care. It is already pretty late for him.”

“All of them drunkards,” summed up Aunt Deen, who liked to deal in generalities.

Election Sunday came at last. I knew it by the multicoloured posters which decorated the fronts of buildings and the greater affluence of those that I had to wade through on the way to the School Mass. At the house no one had made the slightest allusion to it. After the spiritless luncheon grandfather put on his hat and grasped his cane.

“Where are you going?” asked Aunt Deen.

“Into the country.”

“You have voted already?”

“Indeed I have not.”

“It’s a duty.”

“That’s all the same to me.”

“After all, so much the better,” my aunt added; “you would have been capable of voting for those scoundrels.”

She deemed it useless to designate them more definitely.

He had almost “solicited the suffrages of voters,” to quote from the posters, and he didn’t even vote. He chose for himself and I could see no reason to object. Every one had a right to do as he chose and to change as he fancied,--otherwise what would become of liberty? As he was going out he suddenly turned to me and proposed that I should go with him.

“Just let me get my cap,” I cried, starting up, as if I had totally forgotten the scene in the tower.

Father, who was observing us, checked my enthusiasm by saying:

“Thank you. To-day I will take him for a walk. I am at leisure.”

He very seldom allowed himself leisure. His patients were more and more absorbing him. His reputation must have extended far and wide, for he was sent for from great distances; his absences, his journeys multiplied.

“I am no longer my own master,” he said to mother. “And life is passing.”

“My dear,” she murmured. “I beg of you don’t overtire yourself so.”

She was always devising ways of caring for him, of finding means for him to rest. To reassure her he would laugh, drawing himself up to full height, rounding out his chest. He never needed rest. His robust shoulders might have borne up the world; and in fact did he not carry the burden of the house and of our seven futures? By a strange complication of feeling, though inwardly I was always in a state of revolt against him, I never ceased to admire him. I could not imagine him beaten, or complaining. Life was for him one perpetual victory.

I admired him only at a distance. The prospect of this walk with him appalled me, and I remained on the stairs, waiting for some unknown event to interpose an obstacle.

“Come,” he said encouragingly, “run get your cap--make haste. The days are long--we can take a good walk.”

There was no harshness in his sonorous voice, but rather that encouraging tone that always brought hope to his patients. In fact, neither when he took me home from the Café of the Navigators, nor in the tower chamber, had he treated me harshly. But his kindness had no softening effect upon me. I was not in the least grateful for it, but still considered him as a ruthless tyrant bent upon keeping me in fetters. As soon as he appeared I ceased to be free. Had he taken me to the wildest, most desolate place in the world, I should still have seen walls rising up around me. With grandfather it always seemed to me as if all enclosures disappeared, and the enfranchised earth belonged to every one--or to no one.

Why did my father impose upon me this long walk with him, the mere prospect of which chilled me? Hadn’t Martinod’s revelations showed me what his preferences were? He was proud of Bernard and Stephen, he was always thinking of Mélanie. I had sometimes seen him looking at her with a strange earnestness, as if he had never seen her before, or as if he were imprinting her upon his memory; as for me, I didn’t count. With all the power of my will I was determined to be a misunderstood son, an unhappy, unjustly neglected child. It was necessary that I should play this rôle, to keep alive the love-sadness in which I found my chief pleasure.

Therefore I set out reluctantly, and let him see that I did. He on the contrary made every effort to be gay. Perceiving that he desired to put me at my ease, I became all the more reserved, in a spirit of opposition.

We were off at last, not with the slow pace of idlers who have no particular point in view, as grandfather and I were in the habit of walking, but with a light, quick step as if to military music.

“If we walk fast,” he said, “we can do it in two or three hours.”

Desiring him to understand that I was not in the least interested in the walk, I did not inquire where we were going. It would surely not be that secluded place where the ferns grew thick, where furze clung to the rocks, where, apart from the rest of the world, far from houses and cultivated fields, I had been introduced to wild nature by the soft music of a cascade.

I remember that as we were passing through a village I gave a great kick to a fragment of an old drain tile that lay in the road. In an instant all the dogs were howling at our heels. Somewhat terrified by their wide open mouths and the great hubbub that I had aroused, I drew near to my companion.

“Let them bark,” he said reassuringly. “You will see that it is just so in life. As soon as one makes a little noise in the world all the dogs rush upon you. If you turn against them you make yourself ridiculous. The best way is to take no notice, and just let the dogs bark.”

Somehow I knew that he was thinking of Martinod and the slap he had given him. As soon as we were beyond reach of the dogs I was vexed with my father for having noticed my movement of fear.

We began to climb a hill by a good mule path. By degrees as we went up into a purer air, he recovered his fine spirits. It was a lovely day in late May or early June, warm but with a good breeze. Spring comes slowly in my country, and vegetation starts suddenly into life. It might have begun the day before, or the day before that, so bright were the leaves, so rich the grass, so gay the flowers. We crossed a grove of oaks, beeches and birches; the ruddy brown oaks formed the pillars of an immense vaulted temple, hiding the sky.

“Ah,” said father, pausing for breath, and taking off his hat, the better to feel the coolness that fell from the trees, “how good it is to be here, and what a beautiful day!”

I wondered at his raptures over so common a thing, which I had so often enjoyed, not considering how seldom he had an opportunity for such enjoyment. But he went on:

“It is terrible to be so busy! Not to have time to enjoy the sunshine and the wide spaces, nor to talk with one’s sons as often as one would wish. Do you remember the old times, Francis, when I used to tell you about the wars in the Iliad and the return to Ithaca?”

I had not forgotten, but those epic stories seemed to me to belong to a far-away and outgrown childhood. They dated from before that convalescence which had changed my heart. They dated from before my walks with grandfather, from before liberty and Nazzarena, from before love. So I cared for them no longer. Hector had fought to guard his home, and Ulysses had braved tempests to return to his, the smoke from which he had seen afar, from the sea; but I was looking forward to my individual future, when I should not be dependent upon any person or anything.

We soon made our way through the cover of the trees and reached the top of the hill. It was crowned by the ruins of an ancient fortress, which, to judge by the broken and crumbling fragments of walls, and by the height of the still upright and loop-holed towers, must have been of considerable extent. Brambles and ivy were growing among the ruins, which seemed to be standing out against the last assault, that of vegetable growth, greedy to overwhelm them.

“I do not care much for ruins,” observed my father. “They are poetic, but they weaken the desire for action. They remind us of the end of things, and the object of life is to build up. Still, they have their part to play, evoking the memory of a past of conflict and glory. This was once the fortified château of Malpas. It commanded the road to the frontier. What attacks and sieges it has endured! In 1814, when France was assailed by three armies, though it was then entirely dismantled, cannon were set upon the walls to resist the Austrians.”

I might have known that we were going there. The place is celebrated through the entire province. For what it was celebrated I only vaguely knew. Grandfather had never taken me there; he detested places that every one visited, “where,” he used to say, “whole families go on Sundays, places full of memories, great men, battles and greasy papers.”

Father grew animated when he talked of battles. Had not he too defended the house against our enemies, against Aunt Deen’s they, so fiercely bent upon its overthrow? Won to him for a moment, I had almost asked, “And where were you during the war, father?” I knew that he had entered the army and braved the snow with his company during a bitter winter. But the question did not pass my lips. To have asked it would have been to own that I was yielding to his influence, and I braced myself to resist him. I would have given all this forest of oaks, birches and beeches, all those ruins, so picturesque against the sky-line, for the chestnut tree under which Nazzarena had passed.

He led me to the edge of the terrace that had once been the court of the château, the wall of which had been thrown down. From here one dominated the whole country; there was the lake with its indented shores, its graceful little gulfs, its green promontories, the town rising in terraces above it, easy to trace by its open squares and public gardens; there were the villages of the plain, half hidden in greenery, like flocks of sheep at rest, those on the hillsides grouped around their sentry-like churches; and closing in the view, the mountains, here clothed with forests, there rocky and bare. The pure afternoon light, shimmering over all, sharpened their outlines. Here and there a slate roof reflected back its arrows of gold. The various crops could be distinguished by their different colours, by the various shades of green, and all the boundaries of the indefinitely divided properties, hedges, walls or fences, and the little white cemeteries with their square plots, near the groups of houses, stood out clear.

Father named over all the inhabited places, and then the hills and valleys. His way was not in the least like grandfather’s. Where grandfather and I would have looked for such traces of nature as we could find still surviving in its pristine simplicity between the havoc wrought by plough and axe, the changes brought about by agricultural toil, he, on the contrary, was pointing out the constant intervention of man, the results of the toil of generations. Instead of the free earth, it was the earth disciplined, constrained to serve, obey, produce,--the earth that in the past had been watered by blood, traversed by armed troops, protected by force against the foreigner, as was meet for a frontier province of France, blessed by prayer. For a very saint, a popular saint who had brought miracles into every-day life, our Saint François de Sales had knelt upon this earth and offered it to God. It was feeding the living; it was giving repose to the dead.

Glorious, fruitful, sacred earth, the eulogy of its threefold greatness fell from his lips with such lucidity that in spite of myself I was moved with him.

“And the house,” he concluded, “don’t you see the house?”

I looked for it without interest, realising that I had lost the habit of looking in that direction. It was, however, easy enough to discover, on the edge of the town, standing alone, and at its back the lovely rural domain by which it joined the country.

Like the spirals of a soaring bird, father’s words had covered the entire country, and now, drawing in its circles, had suddenly dropped down upon our roof. He went on to describe the house in detail, as one describes the features of a countenance.

It had not all been built at one time. At first there was only the ground floor.

“You have seen the date on the tablet in the kitchen chimney--1610.”

“Or 1670,” I thought to myself, almost repeating, like grandfather, whose reflection recurred to my mind: “It’s a matter of no importance.” But I dared not risk this comment openly.

A century later our ancestors, having improved their fortunes, had added a story and built the tower. Limited in one direction by the town, the property had been extended toward the plain, then covered by woods. Trees had been cut down to make room for the garden, for fields and meadows. It had been a constant and oft repeated struggle against difficulties, against mischance and against other foes. Did father, then, believe in Aunt Deen’s _they_? I had almost smiled, but he did not give me time. Each generation had brought its effort to the common task, and one or another--that of the garde-français, that of the grenadier,--its contribution of honour; the chain had not been broken.

I felt a strong desire to object--“How about grandfather?” What would he have said to that?

He answered without my question, with no bitterness in his voice, when he went on. Sometimes the chain had been stretched almost to the breaking point, and the house had seen bad days. He pictured it ploughing the waves like a strong ship that has an unerring pilot at the helm. His voice, which in the old days had so joyfully related the exploits of heroes, seemed now to rise, with growing exaltation, into a sort of hymn to the house. It was the poem of the land, the race, the family, it was the history of our realm, our dynasty.

Through the years that have fled since then, the memory of that day, far from weakening, has grown more full of meaning to my eyes. My father had measured the length of the road which I had followed in separating myself from him, and was endeavouring to recall me, to overtake me, to attach me to himself again. Before resorting to authority he was trying to kindle my imagination, awaken my heart, free them from chimeras and set before them an object capable of moving them. Only, hemmed in on all sides as he was by the pressure of daily duty, he had felt the need of haste, he had only this one day, a part of which was already gone, only a few fleeting hours in which to effect my transformation. He was hoping to regain his lost son by a single effort, counting upon his incomparable art of winning men, of subduing them to himself.

Now, so late, I realise that all he was saying to convince me, to awaken in me an emotion which should free me from my bonds, must have been as noble as a Homeric song. Even then I had some inward intuition of it. I do not know if ever more eloquent words were uttered than those he spoke to me upon that hilltop, while evening was slowly beginning to paint the sky and breathe peace upon the earth. I can find no other words to express it,--he was paying court to me like a lover who feels that he is not loved, who yet knows that his love alone can bestow happiness. The affection of a father descends, calls to ours to rise to it; but his, by a unique privilege which in no sense lowered its pride, rose to me, enveloped me, implored me.

Yes, I really believe that my father was imploring me, and I remained apparently unmoved while I should have interrupted him with a cry in which my whole being was outpoured. Yet I was not in fact unmoved. There was too much pathos in the tone of his voice not to thrill through my early awakened sensibility. But by a singular inconsistency, that in me which was moved by his voice was precisely the very desire, all the desires, that he was trying to eradicate from my heart. That voice was chanting the stones of the house that had been built to triumph over time, the shelter of the roof, the unity of the family, the strength of the race which maintains itself upon the soil, the peace of the dead whom God has in his keeping. And while this canticle was thus making melody I was distinctly hearing another, sung for me alone by the music of the vagabond wind, the immensity of unknown spaces, the words of the shepherd on his way to the mountain; the apple blossoms showered upon my face the first day of my love, and Nazzarena’s laugh, and the hopeless shadow of the chestnut tree under which she had passed.

For one moment my father thought that he had conquered. His piercing eyes, always studying me, discerned my emotion. An impulse of sincerity moved me to turn away without speaking, and he understood that I was far from him. His voice ceased. Surprised by the sudden silence I looked at him in my turn, and I saw sadness sweeping over him like a shadow, that heart-breaking shadow that rises from the hollows of the valleys and slowly climbs the mountains as night draws on.

... Father, now I can interpret your sadness. Alone I have once more made the pilgrimage of Malpas, and alone there, I could understand you better. You were thinking of your two elder sons, who, burning with sacrifice, would soon be far away, for the service of God and of the fatherland. You were thinking of your dear Mélanie, who, drawn by the severe serenity of the cloister, was awaiting the hour of her majority. The main branches of the tree of life that you had planted were detaching themselves from the trunk. You had been counting upon me to continue your work and I was escaping you. By yourself alone you had sustained the tottering house, and the house, overwhelming you with labours and cares, was separating your own from you. It is the penalty of material necessities,--they do not leave time enough for the guardianship of souls. But you were thinking of triumphing over time by the mere power of your virile love for me, and your eloquence. In one walk, one conversation, you had hoped to regain the ground you had lost, without violating the respect due to your father. The heart of a child of fourteen years is an obscure heart, especially when love has entered it too soon. I did feel the importance of what you were teaching me, and yet I was considering how to shake it off. The less clearly I understood the word liberty, the more it fascinated and drew me. All the music to which I was listening was the music that it made....

My father’s disappointment found expression in a gesture. Grieved at his inability to win me he suddenly seized me by the two arms as if to lift me from the ground, and prove that he possessed me.

“Oh, understand me, poor child,” he exclaimed. “You must indeed understand me. Your whole future depends upon it.”

“Father, you hurt,” was my only reply.

I lied, for his grasp had merely surprised me. He tried to make light of it.

“Oh, come, that’s not true! I didn’t hurt you in the least.”

“Yes, you did,” I insisted with temper.

He replied kindly, almost apologetically, “I did not mean to.”

Ah, I might well be proud of myself! That strength which I dreaded had entreated instead of breaking me: it had not conquered me.

He laid his hand on my head, no doubt to clear my mind of any mistaken interpretation of his former act, and though he did not lean hard upon it, I felt it heavy upon me. A few years earlier, grandfather, by the same imposition of hands, had invested me with the ownership of all nature.

“Let us go back,” said my father. “Let us go back to the house.”

He said “the house,” like me. Until then the expression had been too familiar to make an impression. This time it did impress me.

On the homeward way we heard the detonations of small cannon, fired in honour of the elections.

“So soon!” he said. “The Martinod list is elected.”

The frustration of his public hopes had followed hard upon his paternal disappointment. For a moment he bowed his head, but it was only for a moment.

The church bell of a neighbouring village rang the Angelus. Another replied, and then another, breathing over all the country-side the serenity of evening and of prayer.