Chapter IX: Book III: I (2)

Details of that sort were of no interest, but I went on to confess to an unbounded admiration for this mode of life. At this declaration she opened her eyes wide, doubtless amazed that one could envy her when one lived in one of those great buildings, capable of enduring all sorts of bad weather.

“All the same you wouldn’t come with us.” The mere suggestion seemed to please her, but she at once put it away as an absurdity.

“Besides you can’t know much. But you’z cute.”

Again that expression which seemed offensive to my self-love. I could not remain silent under so unworthy an estimate, and I retorted proudly,

“I can ride horse-back.”

I had sometimes been hoisted upon our farmer’s blind mare, and had even experienced a disquietude akin to fear when long shivers ran through her body. My friend appeared enchanted and promised to lend me her black steed.

How does the grown-up heart differ from that of childhood? I had not the least idea of going with her. She did not suppose I was going. I had not the slightest equestrian ability. She had no authority over her horse; without mutual agreement each was conniving at luring the other on. It was a delicious foretaste of the falsehoods which lurk beneath all lovers’ conversations.

Just then, as we both sat silent, a fearful and torturing memory came to me. One phrase--just a short phrase from the book of ballads which I had read and reread during my convalescence, until they seemed to form part of the very atmosphere of my existence, suddenly detached itself from the rest--I heard it within myself as if another than myself had uttered it. It was a line in the legend of The Lord of Burleigh. The Lord of Burleigh is speaking to a peasant girl, who is the prettiest and most modest girl in the village, and what he says is,

_There is no one in the world whom I love like thee._

To be sure, I should never in the world have spoken those words aloud; I should even have closed my lips tight to make sure of not uttering them. But I felt them as living things, and they thrilled through me. Now I discovered their prodigious meaning. How could one say such words to some one who was not of one’s family, and whom one hardly knew? _No one in the world_! What about father--and mother? I dimly perceived the sacrilegious power of love, and while I was leaning over that abyss, Nazzarena, usually so grave, was laughing and showing her teeth.

One of the bronzed men of the troop passed, and stopped before us, scrutinising us. Then suddenly he knocked our two heads together, uttering in his jargon a word or two that I did not understand.

The touch of her cheek burned me, and violently pulling myself free I felt myself reddening to the very roots of my hair. She only laughed the more.

“What did he say?” I stammered, tossed between anger and a totally new emotion.

“Oh, nothing,” said she. “That you were my little lover.”

“I!” I protested. “What an idea!”

I could not consent that it should be possible. The love that one expressed must lose all importance. And what next? That way everything would be over. Surely, for love to be love one must keep it to oneself and it must hurt....

III

THE PLOT

HOW was it that no one noticed, when I returned to the house, that I had suddenly changed and grown? I was almost scandalised at their blindness.

“Well, here you are!” observed my father, who was beginning to be uneasy about my absences.

Aunt Deen ran after me to make me put on another coat, more obviously worn. I had hastily slipped on my best, for my visit to Nazzarena. It may have been the memorable olive-green of my convalescence, at last become better adapted to my size after three or four years of growth, unless it had already been retired to a clothes press, in camphor and naphtha, until such time as James should grow to it. I commanded not the slightest respect, although the entire household ought to have been struck with my changed countenance. Instead of thinking only of my adventure, which indeed I could not quite understand, I was vexed with the familiarity with which I was treated.

We were all gathered in mother’s room because of little Nicola, who was somewhat grippy, and who, being a delicate child, needed watchful care. Notwithstanding my absorbing secret I felt that some important event was impending. The too turbulent Jamie was admonished to keep quiet in a corner. Mélanie, always somewhat in the moon--Aunt Deen insisted that she was listening to her voices, like Jeanne d’Arc--quietly undertook to amuse her sick sister, so that father was finally able to show mother the letter which he had in his hand.

“It is from Monsignor’s secretary,” he said as he opened it.

I thought he was speaking of the bishop, who always dined with us once a year. But the name of the Count de Chambord occurred in it. When he had finished reading it--I had not heard it distinctly--father added simply:

“Very well; I will present myself, since the prince desires that nothing be neglected for the welfare of the country.”

“Oh, the prince!” murmured grandfather, smothering his little laugh.

Father looked at him with that straightforward, penetrating gaze which was always hard to bear. But grandfather at once put on his most innocent air, such as I remembered him to have assumed the time we met mamma in the street — when he said, “We are going to buy a paper.”

I at once divined that father was the mysterious and terrible leader whose intervention in the assault upon the mayor’s office Martinod had so feared. It could be no one but he, and how was it possible that he should not win the battle? A look at him was enough. He bore victory about with him. My childish eyes, still loyal and clear-sighted, could see the signs of superiority radiating from his brow. How should I have guessed that superiority is a small factor in success, since all sorts of dubious weapons against it are being forged in dark places? I might indeed endeavour to escape from my father’s influence, but at least I never dreamed of underrating it.

The watchful care usually extended to me was diminished by the illness of Nicola, who was always asking for her mother. I had remarked that father was making the most of his infrequent moments of leisure to talk with Mélanie, go out with Mélanie, take walks with Mélanie. More than ever he treated her with an affection at once tender and reserved, almost respectful, and seemed to extend his strength over her, as if some one was endangering his daughter or seeking to take her from him. As for Aunt Deen, who almost worshipped her nephews and nieces, individually and collectively, she remarked between going up and down stairs that I was a model child and an exemplary son, and even placed to her brother’s credit a large part in this happy state of things.

I made the most of this relaxed vigilance, which in fact was merely comparative, to continue my visits to the circus in spite of the prohibition which had been put upon them. With a hypocrisy which had already become perspicacious, I had persuaded myself that I was not disobeying when I walked around the tent to where the waggons were stationed. The side scenes are not the theatre. Thus from argument to argument I went on until at last I actually entered the tent. Had not grandfather taken me there the first time? He was the oldest, he ought to know better than any one else what was good for me. Besides, no one would know; there was no risk of any member of the family meeting me there, unless, indeed, grandfather. And Nazzarena rode her horse for me alone, and when she bowed courteously in response to the applause it was still for me alone. With all the ease in the world I suppressed the existence of the surrounding public.

Nevertheless, as my conscience was not perfectly easy, I clung to grandfather, who in case of need could ward off suspicions or bear the burden of responsibility. I even went with him to the Café des Navigateurs, though I had exhausted its pleasures and should have preferred another society. Martinod was unusually glad to see us.

“Father Rambert! What a pleasure to see you again! Father Rambert, sit here beside me in the place of honour.”

I observed that if he had formerly excelled in passing over the bills to others, he now kept open purse not only for his own drinks but for those of others. Gallus and Merinos perceived it sooner than I did and refused themselves no indulgence. As for Casenave and Galurin, they had never troubled themselves about the score. I had already before this remarked a complete change in Martinod; he was less and less concerned with oratorical effect, and no longer sought to dazzle us with descriptions of festivals where fraternal embraces were the general order. He produced lists and figures, enumerated proper names and with a bit of pencil which he moistened at his lips industriously addressed himself to checking them up.

A newspaper man having laid the local gazette upon a table, he called the servant to bring it to him in so imperious a voice that the girl was startled and came near upsetting a dish of food which she was carrying. Hardly had he unfolded the sheet when he cried:

“There it is! I was sure of it! _He_ presents himself.”

_He_ had no need of being more definitely designated. Every one in the café unhesitatingly recognised him, and I as well as the others. Our group, which up to that moment had probably not felt sure that he would be a candidate, appeared to be deeply impressed and indeed quite demoralised. All wore long faces as they bent over their tumblers. Secretly scanning them one by one, as an impartial outsider, I considered their party, however numerous, quite incapable of carrying on a contest against my father.

Martinod permitted the others, and especially the neophytes who formed a sort of court around him, and for whose drinks he paid, to start up, exclaim, though without naming the enemy, while he, inattentive or meditative, fixed grandfather with his eyes. As he continued for some time in this attitude, a passage from my natural history recurred to my mind, concerning a serpent that fascinated birds, and I laughed to myself at this absurd idea. For a long time he maintained his fixed gaze; then, after ordering drinks all around, except for me, whom he had forgotten, he leaned forward and in a fawning voice spoke in his neighbour’s ear, but not so softly but that I heard.

“So, Father Rambert, you are no longer in your own house?”

“How so?” replied grandfather indifferently.

“Why, no; that fine château that you live in isn’t yours now.”

He pronounced the word _château_ like the farmer, only omitting a few circumflex accents. Grandfather observed it, and it amused him. “Oho! the château,” he said; “why not the palace?”

“Call it what you like, for all me,” replied Martinod; “the fact remains that it is the finest residence in the country. And well situated--town and country at once. All the same, ha! ha! They have played you a trick, and you are no longer master of the house.”

Grandfather scratched his eyebrow, then pulled his beard. He never spoke to any one of his abdication, not even to me in our walks, and I had perceived that allusions to this old story, several years old now, did not interest him. I knew that he despised property and deemed it detrimental to the general good. But wasn’t that a sacred dogma at the Café of the Navigators, too?

“Well, yes,” he replied with a forced laugh. “I am no longer in my own house; there’s a discovery for you! My poor Martinod, you are behind the times! It’s many a long day since I’ve been in my own house and glad I am, as you see. No more bother, no more care. I am no longer the master, but I am my own master.”

Upon this the dialogue proceeded, more and more gaily.

“Ta, ta, ta! At your age it’s not easy to get used to camping in other folks’ houses.”

“At my age one likes peace and quiet.”

“Yes, I know. They have relegated you to the end of the table.”

“I put myself there of my own accord, and food tastes just as good there as in the middle.”

“But here, Father Rambert, you have the place of honour.”

“There is no place of honour in a café.”

“And your room?--every one knows that you have been hoisted to the garret.”

“Every one knows that I love heights.”

All of which was said banteringly. They were playing at tossing questions and answers to and fro, as we tossed balls at school. Listening to them, my mind was for a moment distracted from its absorbing sentiment, and I inwardly condemned myself for this as for a fault.

The subject soon became a theme for cheap pleasantries. Every one in the café began to talk of Father Rambert’s end of the table, Father Rambert’s garret. He would shrug his shoulders and take it all laughingly.

“Really, isn’t all that true, Father Rambert?” asked Martinod one day.

“Why, to be sure it is true in a sense. If you make a point of it, it is true. But what is it that is true?”

As if everybody didn’t know what is true and what is not true! Grandfather was rather fond of dark sayings. That same afternoon we went home together, he gay and sprightly, I downcast because I had not, even at a distance (which I preferred), seen Nazzarena. At the top of the steps we met father, who was waiting for us, and who seemed much disturbed. He had a newspaper crumpled up in his hand, and handed it without a word to grandfather, who made no motion to take it.

“Do you know who wrote _that_?” he asked. How contemptuously he pronounced the word _that_! I felt that he was controlling himself, but that something serious was going on at our house.

“How should I know?” asked grandfather. “I never read the local papers.”

“Very well, read this one.”

“No, thank you; I’m not interested.”

“Then I’ll read it to you.”

“If you insist upon it.”

I saw them go together into father’s consulting room, leaving the door open, and I had no notion of going away. Grandfather sat down resignedly in an easy chair, and father began to read at once. I felt ill rewarded for the curiosity which had kept me there, for I couldn’t understand a word of that dull, prosy and ill-worded article, which seemed to leave a bad taste in your mouth like grated cheese that melts in onion soup and turns into a sticky glue that clings to your gums. It was about the approaching elections, and a certain omnipotent and despotic personage, eager to rule the public with a rod of iron as he ruled his household. After this there was something about a garret full of rats, exposed to all the winds of heaven, yet good enough, it appeared, for the miserable old man who had been relegated to it, and who was expiating his social kindliness by being treated with contempt and forced into the meanest position in his own house. The article closed with a warm appeal to justice and sympathy. No name, no place, was mentioned. How could I have understood the illusions? It was too complicated an act of perfidy for a child to see through.

“Is that all?” asked grandfather when the indignant voice was silent.

“It seems to me that it is enough.”

“Oh, there isn’t enough there to whip a cat for--mere vague generalities.”

“Is that your opinion?” asked father. “Don’t you feel how venomous, and how dishonouring to me it all is? Have not you always been well treated here? Whose wish was it to sit at the end of the table? Who took possession of the tower chamber in spite of all we could say? Which of us has ever been lacking in respect to you? When has any one neglected to care for you most tenderly and deferentially? Of whom, of what, do you complain? Father, I entreat you,--tell me; this is a grave matter.”

Entreaty followed entreaty, hurrying one upon another, in a voice which gave them a pathetic intonation that thrilled me from head to foot. The obscure article suddenly became clear to me, and I grasped its entire significance. Some one was accusing my father of harshness to grandfather. The scene of the abdication rose up before me, and the morning in which I had borne a part by carrying the pile of _Limping Messengers of Berne and Vevey_.

“I am not complaining,” said grandfather; “I have never complained.”

“And of what could you have complained? This house has continued to be yours. I have taken upon myself only the duties and expenses which were a burden to you. But these calumnies have not been invented.”

“My dear Michel, all these stories bore me to death. I don’t read the newspapers, and get along very comfortably without them. I advise you to follow my example.”

“Because it is not you who are attacked. Because I shall never permit any one to attack you. This attack upon me comes from the Café of the Navigators. I am sure that you still go there, though I have informed you that it is the headquarters of our enemies. But you place in those people all the confidence that you refuse to me.”

“As for that, I go where I please and I see whom I like.”

“You are free, father, without the slightest doubt. But in a family all the members stand or fall together. Whoever aims at you strikes me. Whoever defames me insults you.”

“I have no such narrow views as to the family. I have never opposed you; do the same to me.”

At that moment father saw me through the half-open door, and a suspicion must have crossed his mind, for he cut the discussion short, and pointing to me said,

“I hope you never take that child there!”

“Where, pray?”

“To the Café of the Navigators.”

And turning to me father added in a tone which admitted of no reply, “Go away!”

So that I did not hear the reply.

I have forgotten no incident of that scene and am certain of having reconstructed it in its integrity, and if not in the same words at least in equivalent ones. As I had been successively born into a mysterious longing by a word of the shepherd who was leading his sheep to the mountain, into the knowledge of liberty by a walk with grandfather in the wild forest, into the sense of beauty by having met the lady in white, into the disquietude of love because Nazzarena had told me with a laugh that I was her little lover, so now I was born into a knowledge of human wickedness, to which all my childhood had been a stranger. Aunt Deen’s famous they, at whom I scoffed after having vainly sought them around me, did then exist, and Martinod was one of them, and the gentle and gay Casenave, whom my father had cured, and the old photographer Galurin, and the two artists!

This unexpected revelation completely upset me. People went to the café to enjoy themselves and not to hatch plots. They drank vari-coloured drinks and made jokes the while. No, it could not be possible! A doubt swept over me, both because of grandfather’s calmness, and because the “go away” which dismissed me had been somewhat brusque and aroused in me a desire to take the other side. Perhaps that scrap of paper was indeed not worth reading.

The next day I was in mother’s room when father came in with his hat on, coming straight in from outside without stopping in the vestibule. He took off his hat hastily, and we saw that his face was animated and suffused with colour. He had his grand air of a battle, and he laughed as if pleased.

“I have slapped Martinod’s face,” he said simply, as if he had said, “I have been to see such and such a patient.”

“Oh, dear, oh, dear!” murmured my mother; “what will he invent against you now?”

I heard Aunt Deen running heavily, shaking the floor, rushing in like a whirlwind. She had heard my father’s words from a distance.

“Well done, Michel; well done!” she cried, all out of breath. “They are beaten; well done!”

There was one who didn’t haggle over the defence of the house!

I made the most of the unusual excitement to steal away. I had no objection to Martinod being slapped, so long as I profited by it in some way. I had been feeling myself more closely watched; opportunities to slip away were becoming rare. With all speed I made off to the street and rushed in the direction of the town. But as soon as I reached the Market Place I began to walk slowly, even putting on an unconcerned, indifferent manner, as of a loiterer who has no special point in view and doesn’t quite know where he is going. Thus I proceeded toward the circus, and started to walk around it, being careful to look about me carelessly, to show plainly that I was walking without a purpose. No one could be mistaken. How many times had I executed this little manœuvre and not always with success! If Nazzarena was there, occupied with some household duty, that was no reason why I should approach her, or even greet her. As a general thing I went past her without speaking, stiff as a poker. Our first conversation had exhausted my courage, and moreover I did not know what to talk about next. Sometimes she would laugh at me as she saw me pass--for when it came to playing with me or mocking at me she would lay aside her professional gravity as a horsewoman. Sometimes she would call me. I always went to her at her call, but not for worlds would I have spoken first.

That day she was leading her horse to water at the public fountain. Seen without his trappings and the blaze of torches with which the tent was lighted during performances, this steed appeared to me singularly like our farmer’s old blind mare that I had occasionally bestridden; it was a long bony beast, continually wrinkling his skin all over his body to shake off the flies. But I immediately closed my eyes to so pitiful a sight, and imagined in its place the red roan steed of the Romance of the Swan’s Nest which, in my book of ballads, bore the Knight to the young girl sitting in the grass by the river side, her bare feet in the water.

My adored one was absorbed in her work, or pretended to be, and did not deign to observe my presence. There was nothing for it but to keep on my way, since she would not turn her eyes toward me. And that horse kept on drinking, as if he were capable of drinking the fountain dry. It was enough to make one desperate! At last she turned her head. She was laughing. The naughty girl! She had seen me then! But in her most natural tone, as if she had suddenly discovered me, she bade me good morning.

Having given up hope of her speaking, I found nothing to say. My discomfited face no doubt betrayed my feelings, for she seemed not displeased with my silence, and even spoke of it:

“So, you are dumb to-day?” she asked, laughing all the more heartily as she added, “Aha! so you aren’t my little lover any more?”

I hung my head to conceal my embarrassment. Not love her any more! The foolish question! When one loved it was for always. The word _always_, which my lips could never have uttered, made a strange music in my heart, so sweet that nothing sweeter could ever be heard in the world.

Reassured as to my condition, and no doubt as to the effect she produced upon me, she calmly pulled the halter. Her horse had ceased to drink and from his moist nostrils drops of water were falling back into the basin.

IV

MY BETRAYAL

BECAUSE of that word _always_, continually singing in my heart, the days that followed were at once delicious and bitter, like the fruit that I used to gather too early in the garden. I was sure of the future and indeed of all eternity, enjoying to the full the love that as yet asks for nothing outside of itself. For the slight distress that I had felt at the contact of Nazzarena’s cheek when our heads had been jokingly bumped together had soon passed; nothing indeed was lacking to fill the cup of my happiness but never to see my beloved; my embarrassment returned whenever we met. If at least I had not been obliged to speak to her! I could not have endured to kiss her--I never so much as touched her hand. Each of us--so I think now--perhaps believed in the superiority of the other: she because my house was so solid, and I because of her horse, her golden robe, her talent as a horsewoman, her wandering life, and that indefinable something with which love endowed her. She soon perceived that the two sides were not equal: she could appear in public and be applauded; I was a mere spectator.

Conscious of her domination, she no longer shrank from laying commands upon me. She would ask little services of me,--to buy her a thimble in town, or gold thread and needles to mend her fine robe; and to ask for things used by girls and not by boys made me blush in the shop. If I Had to add some complementary explanations, I didn’t know where to turn to hide myself. She made me help her peel potatoes and delighted in my embarrassment when she saw me casting furtive glances toward the open square.

“Don’t worry, little man; no one is passing,” she would say, robbing me at a blow of all the benefit of my heroism.

Every day, either morning or evening, I would somehow manage to come home from school by way of the Market Place where she was living. What stratagems were mine to avoid suspicion! Sometimes my parents would come to walk home with me, or, the distance not being great, would merely meet me a few steps from the gate. How did I manage not to arouse their misgivings? One or another of my school fellows having discovered my manœuvres tried to make fun of me, but Fernand de Montraut’s intervention spared me the vexation of practical jokes. As the boys urged upon him that I refused to talk about the little horsewoman he pronounced my silence chivalrous; and this opinion, from so competent a judge, filled me with pride.

The same tawny young man who had knocked our heads together, finding me one day in conversation with Nazzarena, jabbered something again in their jargon, pointing his finger at me, and both burst out laughing. As for me, I could have cried.

By degrees this passion, greater than I, and too serious for my fourteen years, made a chasm between me and my family, all unawares to myself. I forgot the elections, and the newspaper article, and Martinod’s slapped face, which had brought about none of the immediate results that mother had dreaded. At the same time I would gladly have made a confidant of grandfather, because of our visits to the pavilion and also because of the lady in white, the memory of whom, until then somewhat vague, was now definitely fixed in my mind. Like a bouquet of fresh flowers I breathed in all the romance of our former walks. Their charm mysteriously affected me--was it not to them that I owed the precocious emotions of my excited sensibilities? But for them I should probably have been thinking only of playing tricks upon my teachers, or at most of enjoying these first days of spring without knowing why.

One Thursday afternoon--our holiday was Thursday--as I had with some difficulty escaped to the circus, to enjoy the performance and gaze upon my horsewoman, who that day did not deign to notice me, not knowing how to go back to the house without attracting attention, I decided to go to the Café of the Navigators, where there was some chance of meeting grandfather. The discussion between him and my father on this subject had already slipped my mind, and my only object was to get home without questionings, with no thought of Martinod and his acolytes. I half opened the door with beating heart; it was the first time that I had entered such a place alone. Grandfather was there; I was saved! So long as I went home under his protection no questions would be asked, and my absence would be justified by the very fact.

I seated myself in a corner to wait until he was ready to go. Near me Martinod was talking with the head of the establishment. I knew him, for he used to mingle familiarly with the patrons, and even in his days of prodigal humour, he would treat them all round.

“You see,” he was saying in a tearful voice, “the bill has been running several years.”

“Send it to the son,” Martinod advised.

“It is not his affair.”

“All the same, you’ll see that he will pay it. That I can guarantee. It’s a good trick to pay him against the elections. And besides, the boy has had some.”

Whom was he talking about? I had not noticed. But suddenly Martinod gazed at me, and under that gaze I at once remembered the slap he had received. I even felt a vague remorse at being in his company; but grandfather had surely kept on going with him. After all, he had received and not given the slap, and here he was, raising his arm to heaven as if some one had committed an unpardonable crime against me:

“That child has nothing to drink!”

I should never have believed him so solicitous with regard to me. Everybody had neglected me for a long time, and in fact, but for the passion which absorbed me, and inclined me to privations for the very love of suffering, I should have observed the infrequency of the glasses of syrup. The oversight was immediately repaired. The materials generally reserved for full grown men were set before me; I was solemnly offered a _verte_--of course an attenuated, diluted, inoffensive _verte_.

“I will mix it myself,” declared Martinod.

“I’ll leave it to you,” observed grandfather indifferently, interrupting himself in a heated discussion with Gallus as to the Andante of Bach’s second sonata for piano and violin. “And no practical jokes.”

“Father Rambert, don’t you worry!”

Certainly that Martinod was a good fellow, agreeable and slow to take offence. His cheek was perhaps still warm from that slap, and he was caring for me as for his own youngster!

He didn’t mix it the same way grandfather did. The superimposed lumps of sugar were melted; now he might pour the absinthe. Upon my word! He surely was treating me seriously and not like a baby gorged with milk! That brew must be extraordinary!

I tasted it and pronounced it delicious, without knowing why, the better to play my own part; and this gained me the suffrages of Casenave and Galurin.

“That’s the first,” they declared, “but it shall not be the last.”

I was almost the object of an ovation, and in gratitude I turned upon Martinod a humid eye. But why did he look at me in silence with that compassionate look? Had I a papier-mâché countenance? He finally leaned over me and whispered in my ear a few simple words that completed my disquietude:

“Poor little fellow!”

Why under the sun did he call me poor little fellow? Did I look as wretched as that? No doubt I hadn’t succeeded in seeing Nazzarena the whole day long. Yes, to be sure, I was unhappy, since everybody noticed it. Only no one ought to notice it. This was a secret, hidden in the very bottom of my heart, and no one had any right to speak to me of it. I at once assumed a repellant face, intended to discourage sympathy. But I couldn’t keep up this attitude. Ever since I emptied my glass, I felt, as it were, a veil before my eyes, and a warmth through all my body, an enervating torpor, and a sort of longing for confidence and affection. Furthermore, I had been mistaken as to Martinod’s intentions. He was not thinking of my love, he knew nothing about it, and with small respect to consistency I began now to regret that I didn’t hear him pronounce Nazzarena’s name. He was fascinating me with his gaze, as the serpent in my natural history must have fascinated the birds, and in a voice of caressing inflections, insinuating, coaxing, he gave me to understand that in my family I was misunderstood. In ambiguous words, with all sorts of circumlocutions, hesitations, reticences, he revealed to me that my father cared more for one of his older sons than for me. Which one? Stephen or Bernard? At this distance of time I do not remember which one he indicated. Was it Bernard, for his military air, his decided manner, his gaiety, his enthusiasm, and his resemblance to father? Or Stephen, for his fine and even temper, his good marks, his application, even his absence of mind? Upon my word I can not say which, now. Our parents treated us without the slightest difference, and each one was the object of special attention which he was free to consider a favour. Still, I did not hesitate to believe this stranger who did not know us, who had never set foot in our house, and who, I knew, had been chastised by my father for his perfidy.

Yes, I was misunderstood by my family. Imperceptible proofs started up from the shadows, and grew like clouds chased before the wind. My father was always talking about the absent ones, and when he received news of them he was radiant. Their letters were bulletins of victory. He wore paternal pride upon his forehead. I, I alone, was systematically kept in the background, I was of no consequence. How severely, the other week, he had cried “go away!” Did he know that I was frequenting the circus in spite of his prohibition, and that I peeled potatoes in the public square? If Bernard or Stephen had been the offender he would have come to know it, and would have scolded them, whereas he treated me with outrageous contempt; I, who was bearing the burden of so noble a love, I was treated only with humiliation and insult. Worst of all, worst of all, my father did not love me--nobody loved me. Everything conspired to make me think so, since I had not once met Nazzarena that whole day long! There was only grandfather, and grandfather was absorbed in his conversations, his music, in smoking his pipe, in his telescope and his almanacs.

I cast an imploring glance in his direction. Now he was waxing warm with Gallus over a quintette by Schumann. At such a time the world did not exist for him.

I would have consented to get along without the existence of the world, provided he would concern himself with me. I had the horrible sensation of being abandoned by every one, and that this man close at hand who insinuated his sympathy in a moved and compassionate voice had just informed me of an irreparable misfortune. I could have cried, but in the face of curious looks I kept back my tears. But on that bench, in that café, I learned to know the sadness of being misunderstood, of solitude in the midst of a crowd, of despair. Life is made up of many griefs; have I ever experienced a more intense pain than this imaginary despair?

Thus disarmed by the very tenderness that bared my sensibility to the quick, and fascinated by the serpent, I unconsciously entered into the plot which was being concocted against my father. Having accomplished his purpose--more easily than he had believed possible, for he was unaware that love was his ally--Martinod repeated in a heart-rending tone,

“Poor little fellow!”

My stifled sobs were suffocating me. He might blazen his triumph abroad, for he had succeeded even beyond his hopes; the seed of his suggestions was destined to spring up later and bear noxious fruit. But had he not found an easy prey?

I was still too unsophisticated to know that hate can flatter and smile, look pleasant, appear sympathetic or compassionate, and enwrap its object in fine phrases as bandits bind ropes about the man they would render powerless. Hatred of this sort, which with affected sympathy addresses itself to the friends and relations of the man it pursues, certain of wounding him on the rebound, can not always be denounced even later. There are few sentinels like Aunt Deen to keep guard over the sacred ark of the family.

It has been said that circumstances conspired to further Martinod’s plan. One Sunday afternoon, as I was idling at the window instead of finishing a task--I usually preferred grandfather’s tower chamber, but he was absent--I suddenly beheld a wonderful, a terrifying sight! The circus troop was invading our garden! They had come through the gate, which, notwithstanding Aunt Deen’s vigilance, had been left open because of the more frequent comings and goings of a holiday. The whole company was swarming over the grass plats and shamelessly trampling the flower borders. There were ragged women with babies in their arms, there were the two clowns whom I had in time come to identify, there was the grey-headed rope dancer and there--oh, woe! there was Nazzarena herself! Nazzarena without a hat, her hair unbound and her dress in rags. For the first time I realised that she was poor. In our garden, in the carefully tended alley, one might have taken her for a poor country girl.

Dumb with amazement, I dared neither hide nor lean out of the window. Terror at what was sure to happen paralysed me. Why had they come? What did they want? What ill wind had brought them? Our garden was not a place for wandering folk, bohemians, people whose only knowledge of land was to walk upon it. If only it had been the old-time garden, overgrown with weeds, never pruned nor watered! Or if only grandfather had been there to receive these suspicious guests! Nazzarena, Nazzarena, hasten back to your _roulotte_ and the white tent in which you reign! I assure you that this is no place for you!

I was actually undergoing martyrdom on seeing them thus shamelessly making merry over our grass and flowers. I longed at heart to cry out, to warn them, but I could not. And in infinite agony I measured the distance which separated the house from my love.

One of the clowns was already ringing the door bell. My God! what would happen next? They had hardly begun to parley with Mariette, whose uncompromising humours I knew, when the catastrophe fell upon us. Aunt Deen came flying to the rescue and stoutly made head against the whole band. The dialogue was distinctly audible at my window:

“What do you people want?”

A chirping voice replied:

“This is Father Rambert’s house, isn’t it?”

“What do you want with Father Rambert? Go about your business. Get out!”

What abominable injustice! All the beggars of our town were always kindly treated by us; they even had their days, like society ladies, and Zeeze Million, who was crazy, and that drunkard Yes-Yes received a regular allowance at our door. Then why not give these honourable acrobats a chance to explain? Aunt Deen, always so charitable and ready to help, was turning them out with harsh words merely because they were strangers!

Thus ignominiously ordered out, they rebelled, and poured invectives upon their persecutor, who, I must admit, was not mute.

An infernal uproar arose. The rope dancer yelled, beating her sides. At last I resolved to intervene in behalf of my friends, Nazzarena’s friends. Suddenly, at the very moment when I was about to quit my post of observation to fly to the fray, my father, no doubt drawn by the uproar, appeared upon the scene. Without so much as opening his lips, with a single gesture--but how unanswerable!--he pointed to the entrance. And the whole roaring troop retreated, crowding between the two pillars that supported the gate, and fled, immediately and most astonishingly.

I was furious at so sudden and complete a rout. Since it was thus, I, by myself alone, would resist that authority which no one ever dared to brave. All my new-found enthusiasm again sweeping over me, I rushed to the stairs, flew down four steps at a time at the risk of _carabossing_ myself, to overtake my beloved.

“Where are you going?” asked father, still at his post, and barring my way.

I was silent. My enthusiasm was already falling flat.

“Go back at once,” he went on. “I forbid you to go out.”

Unhesitatingly, but swelling with wrath, I went upstairs, gnawing my fists with rage. Was no one to resist him, then? I, too, like those others, had been immediately vanquished, overthrown, petrified, merely by having faced him. People think it is easy to revolt against the powers that be: I had just learned that that depends upon the character of the government. Again and again I went over Martinod’s insinuations. How true they were! _He_ understood; _he_ was a true friend!

I had only obeyed in appearance. I had hardly reached the tower when I began to listen for the sound of closing doors, and no sooner was I convinced that my father had gone back to his study than I furtively crept down and slipped out of the house. Once beyond the gate new courage inspired me: I straightened up and breathed freely. This time, I had no thought of taking a roundabout way, putting on airs of indifference, deceiving any whom I might meet, but ran by the shortest road to the Market Square. The gipsies were rolling up the tent, piling up the benches, the Sunday loiterers looking on with interest. This raising of the camp boded ill--I saw Nazzarena at last; she was gathering together the scattered household utensils. This was no time to be bashful: it called for heroic resolution. In the very face of all the spectators, most of whom doubtless knew the Rambert boy, I flew to my beloved, like one of the knights of my ballads. When she saw me she cast a heart-broken glance upon me.

“They drove us out of your garden,” she said before I had spoken a word.

How reply to this grievous statement? No doubt she included me among her persecutors.

“It wasn’t I!” I cried, hasting to separate myself from my family.

“Of course it wasn’t you,” she replied philosophically. “You are too little. We went to tell your grandfather that we are going away to-morrow. To-morrow morning.”

“To-morrow!” I repeated, as if I had not heard, or had not understood.

“Yes, to-morrow. See for yourself. They are loading the things on the waggons now. The Marinetti brothers have left us. There’ll be no matinée to-day--that’s one good haul lost.”

To my surprise, she was not angry with me for her expulsion, and even in my grief I observed an unexpected reversal of parts: she was showing an unaccustomed consideration for me, and I was taking on a little protecting air. The prestige of power was doing its work all unawares to myself. Thus she did not suggest that I should help her in her work, though the day before she would not have failed to do so.

One of the old hags stuck her long yellow face out of the nearest waggon, and upbraided her for wasting her time.

“I must go,” said Nazzarena. “Such a job to get ready for moving! Good-bye, good-bye, my little lover! I wish you another sweetheart; you’s cute; you’ll find one.”

She did not offer her hand; perhaps she dared not, because of the respect for me which the sight of the house had inspired in her. And I found no words in which to reply to her. I smiled foolishly at her strange wish for me: it seemed abominable and sacrilegious, though the affectionate way in which she uttered it was as sweet to me as a caress. Her departure floored me--seemed to cut my legs and arms and empty my brain. I stood there like a dolt. Time and place were nothing to me--she was going away!

I saw her in the distance, stumbling under the heavy trappings of her horse, and she made a little gesture of adieu as she disappeared behind one of the waggons. It seemed to me as if she was already far off, and I managed to walk away.

Where should I go? Associating the cruelty of my family with Nazzarena’s departure, I could not go back home. What consolation, what support would I have found there? Father had forbidden me to go out: I could judge of the reception which awaited me. I wandered up and down the streets among the people in their Sunday best, absent-mindedly bumping against one or another, who hurled at me the epithet of blockhead, or boor. I almost enjoyed it, so tempestuously did I long to change the character of my pain. Powerless to direct my steps, I automatically found myself at the Café des Navigateurs. Grandfather would understand me; grandfather was the embodiment of that security for which that dear Martinod was working.

The room was crowded, and I suddenly felt comforted by the atmosphere of tobacco and anise, the stir and movement. I lost the immediate sense of my grief, I was even able to perceive distinctly that something solemn and unusual was going on. A decision of capital importance had been arrived at, and from the way they were talking it seemed to me that this was one of those historic events that by and by boys would study in school. Grandfather was the object of a thousand testimonials of honour and admiration. They were crowding around him, congratulating him, shaking hands with him, though this he resisted. And champagne was being brought--highest favour! Champagne on a day like this! I began to feel deeply moved, all the more that no one offered me any.

“A goblet!” cried Martinod, that dear Martinod who certainly _was_ good to me; “a goblet for the little fellow!”

And lifting high his own, with a grand gesture he proclaimed,

“To the election of Father Rambert! To the victory of the Republic!”

“Bravo!” exclaimed the faithful Galurin.

Callus and Merinos were overflowing with happiness: no doubt they were foreseeing that era of Beauty which they had so often anticipated in my hearing. As for Casenave, he was supporting the weight of his head with both hands, his vague eyes perhaps fixed upon some vision. The barmaid was inclining the bottle over his glass: he may have seen in her one of those beautiful ladies in empire gowns who used to come down through the ceiling of his garret to give him drinks and visit him openly.

“_Ziou_!” he exclaimed, sitting up.

As he gazed upon the frothing beverage, and the golden stream, he was seized with a convulsive shudder. His trembling hands failed to grasp the goblet, and he hiccoughed with impotent greed.

Grandfather alone showed no enthusiasm nor even pleasure. His ill-humour was evident. He found small enjoyment in popularity or applause. All this open-mouthed, drinking, shouting crowd got on his nerves. I am sure he would rather have been somewhere else--in the country--for instance, eating strawberries and sweet cream. Still, he was constrained to yield before the general enthusiasm.

“After all, it is perhaps well,” he conceded. “No tyrants, above all; liberty!”

No, indeed; no tyrants! In an instant the vision of my father rose before me, standing on the doorstep, his extended arm driving away those poor gipsies. And by way of protest, I emptied my goblet.

At that precise moment--so long as I live I shall never forget the sight--father entered the Café des Navigateurs. Unheard-of act! My back was turned to the door, so that I could only see him in the mirror. But it was Martinod’s face that told me of his presence. Martinod had suddenly turned pale, and the hand which held his glass trembled like that of Casenave, so that a little champagne slopped over. Father, before whom every one hastily gave way as before an important personage, or as if in fear, was already at our table. He raised his hat, saying most courteously,

“Good day, gentlemen. I have come for my son.”

No one spoke. There was utter silence, not only in our group but all through the room, every one attentive to the incident. The apparition of Nazzarena in the circus upon her black horse would not have aroused so much interest. The only sound was the exclamation, “Oh!” uttered by the proprietor, who, napkin in hand, stood motionless behind the bar.

Grandfather was the first to regain self-possession. He remarked, calmly, almost impertinently:

“Good afternoon, Michel. Will you take something with us?”

The offer was received by the bystanders with mocking little laughs and all tongues were unloosed. But the diversion was of brief duration. Father merely replied, “Thank you, I came for my son. It is nearly dinner time, and we are expecting you both.”

Thus he invited grandfather to go with us. Perceiving that his invitation was not accepted, he turned to Martinod, who was giggling, and measured him from head to foot.

“See here, Monsieur Martinod, since I have removed my hat, I beg you to remove yours.”

It is true that Martinod had kept his hat on, but I knew that it was the custom in the café. Far from complying with the order--no one could mistake that it was an order, notwithstanding the “I beg you”--he hastened to pull his hat lower on his head. Interested and enthralled, every one in the room was watching, and a wag in the corner ejaculated:

“He will. He will not.”

My father took a step forward, and to me he seemed a very giant. Alone among them all, it was he who spread terror. In that clear voice that I so well knew, the voice that moved Tem Bossette in the depths of his vines and brought the whole household together in an instant, he said:

“Do you wish me to knock off your hat with my cane, Monsieur Martinod? For my hand will never touch you again.”

This time the laughs ceased. The case was becoming tragic: one might have heard a spider spinning her web. Grandfather saved the situation.

“Come, Martinod,” he said; “one must be polite.”

“Then it’s for you, Father Rambert,” Martinod replied, suddenly uncovering. His face was bloodless, and no one could doubt of his defeat.

My father, having conquered, turned to Casenave, lost in his dreams.

“You, too, friend, would do well to go home.”

The terrified Casenave cried in a melancholy voice which broke the tension, so droll did it seem.

“I haven’t been drinking, Doctor. I swear I haven’t.”

Thereupon we went out, father and I; I behind him, and though the crowded tables were full of company, I moved between them without difficulty, so large was the place respectfully made for my guide. By way of not resembling Martinod, whose cowardice disgusted me, I forced myself to hold up my head and appear indifferent. At the bottom of my heart I was in unspeakable dread of what might happen in the street, when we were alone. Never, save perhaps in my earliest childhood, had my parents inflicted corporal punishment upon us: self-esteem was a part of our education. But now I expected it. If only he didn’t slap my face like Martinod! Martinod was an enemy of the house and I had drunk his champagne. Little did I care for the house, however; like grandfather, I proposed to be free. Hadn’t grandfather taken a gun when he had failed _in the blood of the days of June_, against the prohibition of his own father, the magistrate, the nurseryman, whom he held in such slight esteem? They might beat me, might abuse me, but they should get nothing out of me. I braced myself against the terror which was gripping me, until I at last came to feel a sort of insensibility, a strength of resistance which enabled one to endure anything without uttering a complaint.