Chapter III: Book IV: I the Epidemic 337 (2)

Before being led into action, the whole battalion used to undergo a preliminary inspection from Aunt Deen, who was in charge of the review of details.

Aunt Deen was endowed with an activity which years could not abate, and of which all the servants except Mariette shamelessly took advantage. Always coming and going, from cellar to garret, always on the stairs--for she invariably forgot half the things she intended to do, or suddenly interrupted whatever she might be doing--beginning to sweep, leaving off to hunt dust under a piece of furniture, warring against spider’s webs with a wolf’s head--a sort of brush fastened to the end of a long pole,--or rushing to the aid of one of us who had cried out, she had rocked, washed, dressed, cuddled, watched over, amused, kept busy, cared for and caressed all seven of us, and even an eighth, who had died before I could remember.

To this imposing number must also be added grandfather, whom she shielded from all care. He was not exacting. Provided he could have at hand whatever he might desire he asked no favours of any one. To be sure, the disorder of his room must always be respected; he watched over it jealously, insisting that no one could ever find things that had been put away. He took the indulgence of his whims as a matter of course, paying no attention except when he was irritated by an exaggerated degree of consideration.

As for our education and training, our moral guidance, Aunt Deen, notwithstanding her advantage in the matter of age, placed herself at the service of our mother, for whom she entertained unlimited admiration and affection. Even in old age she would accept the functions of a subaltern only. When she had said “Valentine wishes this; Valentine says that” (Valentine was our mother), there was no room for discussion. She herself obeyed to the very letter, without even seeking to enter into the spirit. Not one of her thoughts was for herself; she distributed them all, without exception, among the others. She could see no good in scolding, and hung her head when any of us was reprimanded, as if in protest against the harshness of authority. She not only never carried tales about us, she found unimagined excuses for our worst faults, such wonderful excuses as sometimes to ward off punishment merely by the surprise which they awakened.

“That child has taken some pears.”

“The tree needed relief, it was too heavily loaded.”

“That child’s table manners aren’t nice. Did you see him put his hands into his saucer of spinach?”

“He does so delight in green things!”

In our studies she took no interest. But she had that soul-culture which bestows its delicate flower upon the mind. One knew quite enough if one was well behaved and a good Catholic. Indeed it was her opinion that our brains were too early crowded with a lot of useless knowledge. She could find no manner of use for the history of pagans, and as for arithmetic, she had never known how to add. But on the other hand our health, our cleanliness, our happiness, were entirely her affair. She sang to put us to sleep, she sang to amuse us, she sang to encourage us to take our first steps. All my memories reverberate with the tintinnabulation of her songs. There was one cradle song in which we became by turns general, cardinal and emperor, and the refrain of which was designed to encourage us to wait with patience for the brilliant future.

“_Meanwhile wait, and on my lap_.
_Lovely cherub, take your nap_.”

The lovely cherubim, however, were seldom in haste to take their naps.

There was also the “Charming Nest” which “naughty little sharp-eyed imps” tried to destroy, though it ought to be respected, for

“_It was the hope of Spring time_
_And all a mother’s love_.”

Sometimes it would be the prisoner Silvio Pellico who in heart-rending strains longed for his Italian breezes. One of my earliest plays was the escape of Silvio Pellico, though I had no idea who he was. My favourite songs were perhaps “The Pool” and “Venice.” I call them thus because I knew no other titles for them. “The Pool” told of a fearful tragedy from drowning:

_Little children, have a care_
_When you run across and follow._
_There’s a deep pool hidden there_
_By the dark trees in the hollow._

_Listen to what happened there_,
_When a child with golden hair_,
_Slipped away from his mamma-a-a._

The fair child was running after a dragon-fly, and “the maiden with golden wings” enticed him into the cold water. That would teach him not to steal away from the maternal arms! As for “Venice,” I remember likewise the first lines, with all their doggerel:

_If God should favor-ize_
_My noble enterprise_,
_I’ll hie me to Ven-ize_
_And spend my days in joy._

Whether from the magic of the name of an unknown city, or the melancholy air of the ritornello, I could in those days imagine no more enchanting journey than to go to that Venice whose gondolas I had been shown in a stereoscope. In later years, dreading disappointment, I hesitated long before carrying out the plan born of that far-away music--the music that we still hear within ourselves long after childhood’s days are past. Can it be that this is one of the surest guardians of the home?--that a simple lullaby, sung to quiet us, is the first spark to kindle our imaginations? And when, long after, I at last saw the city of flowing streets and rosy palaces, I entered it with respect, recalling to mind that my visit represented a “noble enterprise”; as if all its wondrous charm had been enfolded in Aunt Deen’s cradle-song.

I imagine that some of her innumerable songs were of her own invention. Or at least, having forgotten their precise words, I suppose that she recomposed them after her own fashion. There was especially a certain “Father Gregory,” half recited, half sung, which is hardly likely to be found in any collection. A charming old lady to whom I repeated it one day assured me that Father Gregory was known also in Berry, in the neighbourhood of Châtre, under the name of Father Christopher. The song, a sort of rhythmical prose, was declaimed in a singsong, suddenly bursting into a tune in the final syllables. A whole little comedy of vanity is summed up in a few phrases. You may judge for yourself from the version of it that I tell from memory.

_Father Gregory came out of his house this morning_. Perfectly natural thus far; Father Gregory is going to take a walk, as is his right; but wait till you hear a detail that characterises this promenade: _in his hat a fine bouquet of poppies_. You must swell out your voice with the poppies. This field flower becomes a symbol of pomp and ostentation. Aha! Father Gregory is no longer a worthy fellow who goes out to inhale the breezes of the country-side; he is an old beau who puts on airs; he parades, he struts, he capers, he expects to be gazed at and admired. But you will be punished, Father Gregory; ill-luck awaits you!

_On the way his dog began to fight with mine_. This bit of news is simply announced. It seems at first to be of slight importance. A bad thing nevertheless,--a dog fight in a little town. What! you don’t know that? You have never lived in the country? A dog fight is a matter of special gravity. The masters intervene, they take sides, and the defeated one swears that the matter shall not end here. Whole families have been embroiled through a dog fight. What was the origin of the enmity between the Montagus and the Capulets? Perhaps a dog fight. And just this way our Father Gregory undertakes to interfere; his dog is getting the worst of it, rolled in the dust as a dumpling in flour. _Father Gregory, trying to part them, tumbles, nose first, in the filth_. He rushes to the rescue with uplifted cane, his foot slips, and behold him on the ground in a lamentable posture, especially his nose, having made a most unlucky choice of a spot upon which to fall. At this point it is proper to assume a melancholy tone, the apostrophe which follows reaching a note of heart-rending grief. _Poor Father Gregory_! A pause. He is to be pitied, for his misfortune is great. But suddenly, pity becomes sarcasm, pointing to his pride. _See his bunch of poppies, far from his hat_! The emblems of his vanity are soiled. He himself may go home, and wash and brush himself, but he can never use the poppies again, and but for them nothing would have happened to him.

I attribute Father Gregory to Aunt Deen because of the fertility of her imagination, which daily provided her with new stories for our delectation. Grown persons are not often on a level with children: they take too low a place. Aunt Deen had an instinct for what was suited to us. Her stories kept us breathless. When I try to rescue them from the past, for her credit, they fly before me, smiling. “No, no,” they say--for I get close to them, only between us is a great chasm, deep, though not wide, which is the common grave of all my vanished years--“what is the use? You can never do anything with us. See: we have taken the colour of that time: how are you to describe that?”

When grandfather came upon us sitting in a circle around our story-teller, he would shake his head disapprovingly.

“_Fiddle-faddles_”, he would murmur; “_fiddle-faddles_. One owes it to children to tell them the truth.”

We would ask Aunt Deen what _fiddle-faddles_ were, and she would answer, by way of getting her revenge, “It’s what one does when one plays the violin.”

Between her songs and grandfather’s violin there was sometimes a deafening discord.

Aunt Deen possessed another marvellous faculty--that of inventing words. I have already told you of _carabosser_, but she invented them by the hundred, so well adapted to their purpose that we understood them at once. I can not transcribe them--they lose their value when written down. Indeed I don’t know how to spell them; spoken language is not the same as written language, and her picturesque words had all the savour and crispness of popular speech. Aunt Deen also used rare words--where she found them is a mystery for she seldom read--strange and sonorous words and phrases that seemed her special property, and which since then, to my surprise and amusement, I have discovered in the dictionary, where I should never have thought of looking for them. Thus, to call down my pride, she one day called me a hospodar, and another day, “the purveyor in chief of mustard to the Pope.” I did not know that the hospodars were the tyrants of Wallachia, and that to believe oneself purveyor of mustard to the Pope meant to have a high opinion of oneself. These strange titles with which she invested me used to make me think of some big man, all in red, issuing commands in a loud voice, and I did not enjoy being likened to him.

Dear great-aunt Deen, let me apostrophise you after the manner of poor Father Gregory! If my early childhood rings musically in my memory, as if it were mounted upon one of those mules all bedight with sleigh-bells, that can not move without giving forth a multitudinous jingle from far away as if to announce the approach of a great train, I owe it to your stories and your songs. As soon as thought summons it, and that is daily, here it comes, loudly ringing its joy-bells, because of which I shall never have reason to complain of fate. Before I see it, I hear it--that merry procession of memory; and when, at some turn of the road that leads from the past to the present, it suddenly comes upon me, it bears in its arms all the flowers of the springtide. You well deserve the bouquet of them that I pick for you, even a bouquet of poppies, as a guerdon for all the stories that you added to your care and prayers. For you were always praying audibly, on the stairs or in church or even under the banner of the wolf’s head itself. Silence was painful to you. That is why, dear Aunt Deen, I break it this evening and talk to you.

Aunt Deen kept strenuous watch outside of the house. To get inside you had, like the wolf in Hans Christian Andersen, to show a white paw like a sheep. She designated by the name of _they_ the invisible foes that were supposed to be investing it. For a long time these mysterious _they_ terrified us. We used to look around whenever she spoke of them. By dint of never meeting them we at last came to laugh at them, little thinking that this laugh disarmed us, and that thus disarmed we should surely meet them later in flesh and blood. Her loyalty was never caught napping. The moment the family was in question she would insist upon a meed of praise being at once awarded it, failing which she promptly assumed the defensive, ready for battle. A certain person who ventured to speak of it in colourless terms found himself scanned from head to foot, and to mask his sense of defeat took refuge in sarcasm:

“I forgot,” said he, “that your house was the Ark of the Covenant.”

“And yours Noah’s Ark,” she retorted with a _tic_ for his _tac_, knowing that her interlocutor harboured all sorts of shady folk.

In those days the bread was made in the kitchen in a kneading trough nearly a hundred years old, before being carried for baking to the town oven. Aunt Deen, who loved all sorts of cookery, used to oversee the operation, and even at times take a hand in it herself. One day when I was looking on, at the moment when the servant was about to mingle the flour, water and leaven, my aunt suddenly gave her a vigorous shake.

“What are you thinking of, girl?”

“Mixing the bread, miss.”

“You are forgetting the sign of the cross.”

For in serious houses no one omitted the sign of the cross over white flour that was on the point of being made into bread. At table, before cutting the loaf, father never failed to trace upon it a cross, with two strokes of the knife. When it fell to grandfather to cut the bread I was quick to notice that he did nothing of the kind.

That was one of my first surprises. From my earliest days I understood the importance of differences of opinion in matters religious.

Grandfather played his violin whenever he pleased. But he did not like to be disturbed. We learned this by experience. My sister Mélanie and my brother Stephen, who had retained from their first communion an ardent and somewhat aggressive piety, had built up a little chapel in a cupboard in that octagon parlour which we used to call the music room because in former days concerts used to be given there, and an old grand piano still stood there. It had been agreed among us that when Mélanie and Stephen were grown up they were to evangelise the savages, just as Bernard was to be an officer and win back Alsace and Lorraine, and Louise, the second sister, always generous, was to marry a champagne grower so that we might always drink as much as we chose of that sparkling golden wine to which we had never put our lips except on occasions of family festival. Thus the future was beautifully arranged for, except my own personal career which remained uncertain. Mélanie had been named for the little shepherdess of Dauphiny who at that time was much in people’s minds; the mystery of La Salette was talked of in guarded words. Sometimes I would ask her if she was not afraid of being eaten by cannibals, the existence of which had been revealed to me by my illustrated geography. Far from cooling her zeal, this frightful prospect simply warmed it. Stephen aspired no less ardently to martyrdom, notwithstanding that an unlucky adventure had happened to him in school: his comrades, admiring his devotion, had counted upon his performing a miracle on the day of his first communion, and the miracle not coming off, he was consequently held in some slight contempt.

I can never remember what sort of vespers or complines we used to say before the cupboard. The ceremonies consisted of hymns vociferated in chorus. Notwithstanding my tender years I was invited to share in these clerical manifestations. On that occasion we used to hold forth with all the energy of neophytes. Mélanie in particular would pitch her voice in its highest key, her piety being proportionate to the noise she made. Unluckily the music room was near grandfather’s chamber. All of a sudden, as we were at the utmost height of fervour, the door opened and grandfather appeared. He never used to pay much attention to us, though when we came within his visual angle he would look affably upon us. But this time he appeared to be greatly irritated. His dressing-gown flowing behind him, his Greek cap awry, his beard all disorder, gave him a fearsome aspect, greatly in contrast with his usual manner. He exclaimed harshly, “It’s impossible to have a moment’s peace in this house. Shut that cupboard, quick!”

We had disturbed his siesta, and his usually even temper was the worse for it. We hastily closed the cupboard. And we knew in that moment all the horror of arbitrary decrees and special laws. The devotion of Mélanie and Stephen was but increased, as always happens in time of persecution, but mine, less lively, or of younger growth, was cooled, I greatly fear.

Not long after it experienced another blow. In our town the Fête-Dieu was celebrated with incomparable pomp and display. People came from afar to take part in it. Where shall we have again such nobly imposing and magnificent spectacles? They have been replaced by gymnastic contests, or processions of mutual aid societies, the bad taste of which is heart-breaking. I pity the children of to-day who have never had opportunity to feel, amid popular acclamations and universal emotion, the imminent presence of God.

The town was divided in rivalry of its wayside altars; each quarter felt its reputation at stake. They were composed of moss and flowers, lilies, hortensias, geraniums and violets arranged in the form of a cross, or ingeniously combined in pious designs of a more complicated nature. All the gardens and groves were ruthlessly despoiled on their account. The finest one was always promoted to the terrace overshadowed by ancient trees that overlooked the lake.

When the morning came every window was watching the daybreak, imploring heaven for favourable weather. The streets were bordered with pines and larches which the peasants, on the previous evening or the one before that, had brought from the mountain in their ox-carts. Wreaths hung upon ribbons were thrown across the street like light cables above a stream, so that one walked about under hundreds of improvised triumphal arches. Here and there, the better to adorn the house fronts, some one had set out a table covered with a white cloth bearing pictures, vases, statuettes with a lamp, and had made ready baskets of roses for the refreshment of the angel battalion. In the poorest alleys the good wives set forth before their houses all their precious possessions, even to daguerreotypes of relatives, or their most artistically decorated caps, the better to honour the passing of the Holy Sacrament. Thus the entire town adorned itself, like a bride for her marriage.

Every one gathered before the church; the confraternities in costume with their banners, the brass band, their well polished instruments shining in the sunlight, the school children, girls and boys, the very smallest of them waving banners and all the population massed behind these official groups, all drawn up in good order. Then, upon the pavement before the church slowly advanced the sacred procession, while all the bells rang together; angels with wings of silver paper strewing the way with flower-petals drawn from little baskets suspended from their necks, clerks and sacristans in red cassocks, swinging censers whence arose blue smoke and a spicy odour, surpliced priests, canons in ermine rochets, and finally, upon a dais the colour of pure gold, or of ripe wheat, its four corners decorated with tufts of white plumes, escorted by four black-coated notables holding its cords, came Monsignor arrayed in a golden chasuble and bearing upon his breast the great golden monstrance.

It was a solemn moment, and yet there was one even more impressive. After having traversed the entire town, the procession would draw up for the last benediction upon the open place that forms a terrace above the lake, upheld by the walls of an ancient fortress. It would be near noon. The rays of the sun, falling directly upon the lake, were mirrored back, brightening all the colours, and flashing out in stars from every fleck of gold. Around the flower-decked altar the various bands were grouped, their standards all unfurled. Around these stood the soldiers in a large circle, the troops taking part for the last time in a religious ceremonial. They closed up, and at the command _genou terre_! they fell upon one knee, the officers waved their swords, and the clarions sounded loudly over all the fields. Many an old woman wept with joy as she prostrated herself, needing to see nothing more to know that God was there. Yet there was more; a priest, mounting upon a stool, drew the monstrance from its flower-decked niche and handed it to Monsignor, and the august officiant, lifting it high in air, traced above the great congregation the sign of the cross. The tremor with which I was at that moment shaken thrilled through the entire crowd, a great wave of emotion, such as reveals to a whole people that they are one in faith.

When I went home in my school-boy uniform I was still all a-thrill. Mother was waiting for me. She perceived what I had just been experiencing, and I saw tears rush to her eyes as she proudly kissed me. She, sacrificing herself, had not witnessed the ceremony. Some one must take care of the house and prepare for the guests who always came to us on that day. But she had come out and knelt before the door, hidden by the pines, when the procession went by. I had seen her through the branches. For a short moment she had united Mary’s part with that of Martha.

Father presently came home, warm and tired. He had had the honour of being chosen to hold one of the cords of the dais, and though he was bald, he had remained bareheaded, at the risk of a sunstroke.

“Dear wife!” he said simply, pressing mother to his heart. He had never given expression to his love for her before me, and that is why I remember this. He too was stirred with high enthusiasm.

Then came grandfather, smiling, spruce, his frock coat buttoned awry and his black hat a little on one side, but except for these minor matters dressed with almost irreproachable care.

“Well!” mother asked him in gentle triumph, “were you there this time?”

It appeared that in former years he had gone out for a walk and had not returned before evening. I had already perceived, from a thousand slight indications, that there was not absolute agreement in religious matters in our house and that the subject was usually avoided. Grandfather could not repress the little sardonic laugh which he seldom bestowed upon my mother:

“Superb, superb!” he said. “One might have thought oneself at the festival of the sun. The pagans could not have done it better.”

Mother’s face crimsoned. She turned and sent me away on some pretext of an errand. As I was going I heard my father’s clear voice:

“I beg you not to jest upon this subject before the children.”

And the sarcastic voice replying:

“But I am not jesting.”

In the street the nearest extemporised altar was already lying on the ground, like the useless shell of a firework. Everything had disappeared but the scaffoldings, crosses of flowers, moss. Candelabra had been hastily put under cover because of the threatening rain, for clouds had suddenly overspread the sky, and also because every one had gone home to dinner. My enthusiasm had fallen too, beneath a word of doubt.

At the Feast of the Epiphany every one had to imitate the acts of the king who had been designated by the bean. If he drank every one cried, “The king drinks,” and each one seized his glass. If the king began to laugh every one burst into laughter. Ought not a king to know when one should laugh and when he should keep his face straight?

III

THE ENEMIES

THERE was one Saturday evening, I remember....

I can not fix the precise date, but I know it must have been a Saturday because on coming home from school I met at the door Oui-oui, shaking his head, and Zeez Million counting the amount of her interest, on her open palm.

Saturday was the day for the poor. We usually watched the procession under shelter of a closed window, for Aunt Deen, who was a stickler for class distinctions, prudently kept us shielded from their verminous contact. Zeez, or Louise, was a crazy woman to whom was regularly given every week the modest subsidy of fifty centimes, which she called her interest. Insanity did not affect her exactions: a new servant, not sufficiently instructed having insulted her by doling out two sous, had received back the inadequate money in her face. Her reason had been affected by the expectation of a large prize in the lottery. She now spoke only of millions and the name had stuck by her.

As for Yes-yes, he owed the soubriquet to his nodding head, the weight of which he could ill sustain, and which incessantly wagged up and down like those articulated animals exhibited at bazars, their motions extolled by artful merchants by way of increasing their price. My sister Mélanie and I had incurred his wrath, under memorable circumstances. Mélanie having read in the gospels that a glass of water given to the poor would be paid back a hundred fold, conceived the idea of offering one to Oui-oui. In the goodness of her heart, she was even willing to let me participate in her beneficence. I held the caraffe, ready to offer a second draught. But he considered our gift an insult. Grandfather, when he heard of our ill-starred effort, completed our discomfiture:

“Offering water to that drunkard! He would rather never wash again than touch water.”

And in our presence he tendered to Oui-oui a glass of red wine, which was swallowed at a draught, followed by a second and a third till the entire bottle was gone. If grandfather was to receive back his offering a hundred fold, his thirst would be copiously quenched in the celestial kingdom.

Whenever grandfather, going out for his daily walk, met beggars at the door, he would desire that bread and not money should be given them.

“Money is immoral,” he would insist. “Let us share our bread with these good folk.”

I could not understand how money could be immoral. And we always found at the foot of the stone columns, broken into bits, all the bread that had been given, the poor having received it with contempt.

It must have been a Saturday in June. It was still broad day, though it was past seven o’clock when I came back to the house, and on the edge of the garden there was still a haycock which Tem Bossette must have mown, taking plenty of time. I just muttered, “How d’ye do, Yes-yes; how d’ye do, Zeez,” without so much as waiting for their reply; did not close the door which they had left open, and slipped into the passage that led to the kitchen, for I had lingered on the way home from school to play with some schoolmates in a narrow street that we called “behind the walls,” because it bordered a row of houses shut in like fortresses. I had no quarrel with this unsocial way of shutting every one out, though I preferred such fences or hedges as permit one to satisfy his curiosity, and do not so abruptly shut off the view; but grandfather, when he passed that way, never concealed his disgust. “The earth is for everybody, and they mew her up as if they feared she would run away!”

He spoke of it as of a living person. Except for our house I should have been quite willing to do away with all enclosures. Did not the earth belong to me?

“Behind the walls” we used to have great games of marbles in the very middle of the street, certain of not being disturbed. If a chance cart should enter the street, the driver, held up by our protests, would wait patiently until we had finished our game, sometimes he would even interest himself in the process; after which he would go on his way. Nobody was in a hurry in those days. At the present time that road is the Boulevard of the Constitution, and one has to look out for automobiles. I have no idea where children go to play now-a-days.

My haste was not due to fear of being scolded for being late. I was sure that no one had so much as thought of me. But merely by approaching the gate I had felt the strange uneasiness which at that time seemed to pervade the house like some formal guest whose presence makes every one feel ill at ease. Domestic tragedies make their approach felt long in advance by signs somewhat like those of a coming storm: a breathless atmosphere, intermittent showers of tears, the distant murmur of recriminations and laments. There was electricity in the air. My mother, who never failed to light her blessed candle as soon as thunder began to growl, was praying more often than ever, and I could see that she was anxious, for her pure eyes could never hide anything. Aunt Deen tore up and down stairs with feverish, almost war-like, ardour, inflamed with a rage that gave her an invincible strength, amazing The Hanged, and making those spiders that thought themselves just beyond reach suffer the ruthlessly avenging wolf’s head. She was continually uttering threats against invisible enemies. Ah! the wretches! They would soon know with whom they had to deal! “They” were certainly getting vigorous castigation in advance. Even our father, generally so self-controlled, appeared absorbed. At table he would sometimes throw back his head as if to drive away troublesome thoughts. And more than once I had perceived him conversing in a low voice with our mother, giving her documents on blue paper to read, the words of which I did not understand. Every one was on the alert for something to happen, perhaps a bulletin of victory or of disaster, such as comes to a country where the armies are on the frontier.

Alone among these secret parleyings, these evident anxieties, grandfather maintained the most complete indifference. Evidently the approaching event was no affair of his. He played the violin, smoked his pipe, consulted his barometer, inspected the sky, predicted the weather, as if nothing could be more important, and he went regularly for his walk. Nothing was changing, nothing could change for him except the clouds across the sun. As for things of earth, they were utterly without importance.

Once father attempted to ask his opinion, or present to him the peril of a situation which I could not in the least understand. His words were supplicating, moving, pathetic, yet full of a respect which in no degree lessened their emphasis. Eying on the floor with my school book I lost nothing of the conversation, instead of studying my lesson. But I could catch only detached words which by degrees filled me with terror: “careless administration,” “responsibility,” “mortgage,” “sentence,” “total ruin,” “auction,” and at last the terrifying conclusion, like the blow of a cane on my head.

“Then we must leave the house?”

Leave the house! I can still see grandfather lifting his arm wearily, as if to drive away a fly, letting it fall again as he replied with a great gentleness which at first deceived me as to his thought:

“Oh, as far as I am concerned, it’s all one whether we live in this house or in another”; adding with his everlasting little laugh:

“Ha, ha! when one hires a house one can ask for repairs. In one’s own house one never gets any.”

At that moment father perceived me. His eyes were so dreadful that I was terrified and broke out into gooseflesh; but he simply said, without raising his voice:

“Run away, child. This is no place for you.”

I ran away, stupefied with a gentleness that was in such contrast with his face. Now I recognise it as a witness to his tremendous mastery of himself. I rushed out into the garden, carrying, like a bomb under my arm, the formidable utterance, _Whether we live in this house or another_. The idea had never occurred to me, could never have come to me, that we could live in another house. I felt as if I had been witnessing a sacrilege, but at the same time the sacrilege found harbour in my brain because it had had no immediate sanction, had been accompanied by no solemnity, was like any indifferent act, like an act of no consequence at all. Was it possible that such words could have been uttered as a mere aside, negligently, even smilingly!

For the first time my notions of life were turned topsy-turvey. I confided my bewilderment to Tem Bossette, who was ruminating, leaning upon the handle of his spade. He lent me a complaisant ear, but took the opportunity to impart to me a bit of his personal history:

“I had a son in the hospital. When I saw that he was going to die, I rolled him up in a quilt and went away with my bundle. He died at home.”

I could not grasp the immediate applicability of his story, which he had told proudly, as if recalling an act of heroism. He shortly condescended to explain:

“It’s your lawsuit that is worrying them.”

Our lawsuit? We had a lawsuit? I had no idea what it was, and though I felt shame for my ignorance I asked the vinedresser:

“What is a lawsuit?”

He scratched his nose, no doubt in search of a definition.

“It’s something about justice. One loses, one wins, just as it happens. But when one loses it’s a great bother. On account of the sheriffs, who walk into your house as into a mill.”

The sheriffs were to walk into our house as into a mill! In an instant I pictured them under the guise of gigantic insects, enormous mole crickets swarming into the garden through the breach made by the chestnut tree, advancing in serried ranks to invest the house. I was particularly afraid of mole-crickets, which have a long clammy body and two antennae on the head, and enjoy a detestable reputation in agricultural circles: all sorts of misdeeds are attributed to them--they ravage whole garden beds. I had actually seen some crawling through the breach, and in the face of their invasion not all the arms manufactured by Tem Bossette sufficed to reassure me. I had turned tail, so to speak, upon my riding pole.

“It’s all Monsieur’s fault,” concluded the labourer, upon whose heart the affair hung heavy. “But what will you have? He doesn’t care for anything, and when one doesn’t care for anything nothing goes right. It’s lucky there’s Master Michael.”

Then, on one side there were the mole-crickets and on the other there was my father. A fearsome battle was to take place of which the house was the stake. And during the battle grandfather, indifferent, would be looking in the air, according to his custom, to see which way the wind blew. Up to that time I had supposed that, like the sluggard kings, he had nothing to do, but behold, he could bring about catastrophes! With one word he could close chapels, belittle ancestral portraits, and above all, it was quite the same to him to live in one house as in another! Why not in a _roulotte_, one of those waggon houses overflowing with bronzed gipsies, such as I had seen passing the gate, to the great terror of Aunt Deen, who used to call us in hastily, and give orders to bolt all the doors and look after the vegetables and fruits.

I was going in, greatly depressed by this conversation when I ran against Aunt Deen herself, whose assistance had been invoked by The Hanged for some arduous task requiring nerve and muscle.

“The lawsuit,” I cried, by way of relieving my mind. She stopped short.

“Who has been talking to you?”

“Tem Rossette.”

“That fellow must be sent away. Beatrix and Pachoux will have to do by themselves.”

She did not count herself. She simply called Beatrix by his right name.

Did she perceive from my tone or my face the inward tragedy through which I was passing? She shook me, laughing:

“Child, when your father is here, there is never anything to be afraid of--do you hear?”

And I was at once consoled.

She was already hastening after the labourer with a ball of red string in her hand which Mariette had doubtless refused to intrust to him. As she went she tossed her head proudly, like a horse that snuffs the wind and I heard her muttering to herself.

“Well, I declare, if that isn’t the last drop!”

By what signs, that Saturday evening, did I discern that the battle had been fought, that we were only waiting to learn the result? In the kitchen there was no Mariette over the stove. She was debating, vehemently, with Philomena, the waitress, who was carrying the soup tureen all awry, at great risk of spilling its contents, and with my old friend Tem, redder even than usual, who was doing his best to reassure the household by a word of prophecy.

“No, no, things will go well. To begin with, for my part, I will not leave the garden.”

As soon as they saw me there was silence, and Mariette quickly recovered her usual coolness and began to scold me.

“You are late, Master Francis. The second bell has rung. You will be scolded.” And to Philomena:

“Why are you standing there like a stock?”

Thus were we dispersed. I was counting upon meeting Aunt Deen in the vestibule before the dining-room; she was always the last to come to table because on the way she would find thirty-six different things to be begun or finished, and dash upstairs and down an indefinite number of times. My tactics succeeded. To forestall inquiry I took the offensive:

“What about the lawsuit?”

“Hush; we are waiting to hear.”

“To hear what?”

“It is being decided to-day in the Court.”

She uttered the words “The Court” with instructive stateliness, that reminded me of the Court of the Emperor Charlemagne, in my history book. A grand personage, a king with a golden crown on his head and wearing a golden chasuble like Monsignor the bishop in the procession, was concerning himself with our matter. It was awe-inspiring but flattering.

Under Aunt Deen’s shadow I slipped into my seat, endeavouring to put on a natural air. In the spirit of good fellowship my brothers and sisters refrained from calling attention to my arrival, so that I could swallow my soup without being noticed. Usually our mother came into the dining-room before us, to serve the soup. Philomena’s loquacity had interfered with this preliminary operation and I reaped the benefit of it. In fact, my parents paid not the slightest attention to me, from which I could infer that something was going on. I hastily gulped down my food, and my plate emptied, I cast a comprehensive glance around the table.

In the seat of honour, grandfather, the reigning king, was leaning over the table in order to drop no soup upon his beard, the precaution evidently quite absorbing him. I should learn nothing from him; nor anything more from my father, who commanded the table from one of the corners, and whose glance made me drop my eyes, for I could see distinctly that he was aware of my fault. After having inquired of one another as to his occupations during the day, he tried to make the conversation general. But he was almost the only one who spoke. His calm, his cheerfulness, soon completely restored the confidence which two or three spoonfuls of warm soup had already begun to awaken in me. Aunt Deen, who could not remain inactive during the intervals of the service, was busying herself in advance by mixing the salad, which she considered her special function, although there had often been some talk of withdrawing it from her because of her prodigality in the matter of vinegar. She tossed the green leaves and muttered vague exorcisms against bad luck. My sister Louise was teasing the little priest, the absent-minded Stephen, whom one might serve indefinitely with the same dish. But Bernard and Mélanie, the two eldest, often turned their eyes in one direction, and mine followed them: they were looking at our mother and our mother was looking at our father, upon whom in this hour all our safety seemed to depend.

The lamp had been lighted but it was not yet dark out of doors. Only the trees seemed to draw nearer, their branches to grow thicker and to cast a deeper shadow. Through the open windows a fresh breeze came from the garden, bringing on its wings pellmell, the odour of flowers, and a cloud of night-moths, which, attracted by the light, wheeled about under the lamp shade. I watched their flight, at times more deeply interested in them than in the disturbed expression of the faces around the table.

The meal was drawing to a close; the dessert was already being served. I had begun to think that nothing was going to happen. Suddenly Mariette rushed into the dining-room, a telegram in her hand. She had not waited to put it on a tray, she had not given it to the maid who served at table, but brought it in person just as she had received it from the postman. She, too, scented important news in the air, and would learn what it was without delay.

“It is for Monsieur Rambert,” she said.

She passed by grandfather’s place, and crossed the entire length of the room, as if she was but doing her duty in handing the blue paper to father, who was on the side toward the windows. Father took it from her, but handed it at once to the actual addressee.

“Do you want it?” he asked.

“Oh, no thank you,” said grandfather with his little laugh. “Open it yourself.”

Nevertheless I caught him casting a quick, alert glance upon the telegram. His little laugh at once recalled to my mind a rattle which had been taken away from me because it disturbed everybody. That little laugh was the last sound. An almost solemn silence ensued, so complete that I could hear the tearing of the envelope. How could father open it with so little impatience? I imagined myself opening it in his place, err--err ... it was done. All eyes converged upon the deliberate motions of his two hands--all except those of grandfather, who quite as peacefully removed the crust from a bit of cheese, and seemed to take pleasure in the trifling task. Father felt our anxiety and doubtless wished to relieve it at all hazards; instead of reading he raised his eyes to us.

“Go on eating,” he said. “It does not concern you.”

Then turning to the cook who had remained behind his chair, leaning over like an interrogation point:

“Thank you, Mariette, you may go.”

She went, vexed, knowing nothing, but sent in Philomena who learned no more than she.

Finally my father read. Deliberate as he had been in the preliminaries he was quick enough in reading. He must have taken in the whole at a glance. He was already putting the telegram in his pocket without a word, without the movement of a muscle, when he looked around the table, and under his gaze we bent our eyes upon our plates.

“Come, come, children!” he exclaimed almost gaily. “It is still light. Make haste to finish your dessert and run play in the garden.”

He spoke in his usual tone, at once cheery and commanding. It was so simple that for a moment our mother quite brightened up. I saw that as I raised my head, but it was only for a moment, like the afterglow upon the mountain tops after sunset. Then the shadow again swept over her face, and I even saw in her eyes two water drops that glistened and disappeared without falling. She had understood, and after her and by her I understood, too. The mysterious Court had decided against us. The lawsuit, the terrible lawsuit, was lost.

We were all in consternation without knowing precisely why; we had felt the wind of defeat pass over us.

Still, our father manifested no trouble, no sadness, and grandfather after his gruyère was dipping his biscuit in his wine, as he particularly liked to do because of his teeth, which were bad. He seemed to have paid no attention to the affair of the telegram. The nerve of the one amazed me as much as the aloofness of the other. By different ways they had reached the same calmness. As for Aunt Deen, she was biting viciously into a peach which was unripe and crackled.

We left the table and went into the garden into which darkness was stealthily creeping. I tried to linger behind, but was drawn along by my sister Mélanie; she divined that our parents wished to talk by themselves.

I could find no pleasure in any play, and I was soon flocking by myself, my imagination revelling over the approaching ruin. “They” were driving us from our house as the angel drove Adam and Eve out of Eden. “They” were coming into our house as into a mill. “They” were dividing our treasures among themselves as the Greeks divided the spoils of the Trojans. “They?” Who? Aunt Deen’s “they”; I knew no more than that. And in this catastrophe one remark kept coming back to me, incomprehensible, terrifying, and yet not to be put away: _What’s the difference whether one lives in one house or in another_?

These words of my grandfather, revolting and at the same time stupefying, almost mesmerized me by their audacity, almost made me giddy. How could one consent to abandon his house without defending it to his utmost ability? In my heart I cried to arms. By way of acting out what was going on within me, I seized one of Tem Bossette’s swords, bestrode my favourite pole, and notwithstanding the rapid approach of darkness, extinguishing the last rays of twilight, of which I was greatly in dread, I rushed at a gallop to the very top of the garden, to the chestnut grove, to the breach in the wall. The shadow of night had already entered by it, and after it all the shadows. They were creeping along, climbing the trees, swarming over the paths, filling the clumps of trees. There was a whole army of them. They were the mole-crickets, giant mole-crickets, the enemies of the house. With all my might I tried to scatter them to right and left with great sword thrusts. But I met nothing, and that was the worst of it. Then, in desperation, I took to my heels. I was conquered.

It was a comfort to hear a voice coming my way, my mother’s voice calling,

“François, François!”

That call saved my honour; my hasty return ceased to be a flight.

My bedroom, the vast proportions of which distressed me, but which happily I shared with Bernard and Stephen, was near our mother’s chamber. It was long before I could sleep. Beneath the door of communication I could perceive a streak of light. The lamp must have burned very late and I could hear the alternating sound of two carefully subdued voices,--my father’s and my mother’s voices. With all calmness the destiny of the family was being discussed close beside me.

IV

THE TREATY

WHEN one is a child one imagines that events are going to rush one upon another like the two opposite camps of a game of prison-bars. The next morning I expected something extraordinary to happen, the first result of which would be a holiday from school. Surely no one would work when the house was threatened! I was astonished on being called at the usual hour, when I was settling myself to make up my lost sleep, and sent to school just as usual. Stephen, always absent minded and absorbed in his prayers, had noticed nothing. But Bernard, the eldest, appeared to me to lack his usual high spirits; no doubt he considered me too young to share his dejection. None of us exchanged any confidences on the way to school.

This silence was the beginning of forgetting. I soon recovered from the alarm of the preceding evening, and very soon, as we continued to live in the house, I concluded that our enemies had beat an unexpected retreat.

“They wouldn’t dare,” Aunt Deen had declared.

Nevertheless, a few days later, happening to be in mother’s room, she received a visit from her dressmaker, a maiden of a certain age with mahogany coloured hair, such as I have never seen on any other head. Mother excused herself for having summoned her for so small a matter, simply a making-over, and not a new gown.

“When one has seven children,” she added prettily, “one must be reasonable. And besides I am no longer very young.”

“Madame is always young and beautiful,” protested the artist.

From my corner I considered this protest misplaced. Neither the age nor the face of my mother belonged to this lady of the mahogany hair, but well and duly to me and my brothers and sisters. Whether she was pretty or ugly, young or old, concerned us alone.

“So,” concluded my mother, “here is a gown which you can easily alter a little. You are so clever.”

“Madame has worn it a good deal already.”

“Precisely, I am attached to it.”

This time I thought the dressmaker was right, in putting on a disdainful air as she accepted the work so unworthy of her. Without question the gown in question had been often worn.

At the moment I saw no connection between this episode and our domestic drama. My mother would always be beautiful enough, and clothes could make no difference. Family discussions, however, usually took place in the octagon parlour, which could only be entered by passing through our bedroom. It was quite isolated, and one could be sure of not being interrupted. We hardly ever went there except for our music lessons, since the cupboard chapel had been put out of commission.

It was there that I had lost my faith in the Christmas miracle. It is true that grandfather’s dry laugh, whenever the descent of the little Jesus was anticipated, had prepared me for incredulity. The morning of the festival day desired and expected by all children, we used to find in this room a pine tree, its branches bent down under the weight of toys, and lighted up by blue and pink candles. At the foot of the tree a wax baby would be lying upon straw, holding out to us his little arms. The ox and the ass were there, too, but the child was larger than they. Their smaller proportions simply put them in their proper place of subordination. Without seeking to penetrate the mystery I always supposed that the tree grew there of itself during the night, with all the strange fruits, which were quite enough to distract my curiosity. But on the night of December 24, lying awake from curiosity, I saw my father and mother pass through the room, walking on tiptoe, only in old houses there are always planks that cry out and betray the presence of people. It even happens that they cry out when no one is there, as if they were supporting invisible persons, the steps of all those who had trodden upon them while living. My parents were laden with all sorts of packages. From that time I understood their collaboration with the little Jesus.

Now, I again believe in the miracle, though like Jesus himself it descended from heaven upon the earth. It was a miracle of love.