This austere teaching found my soul ready prepared and naturally
predisposed to duty. My father’s and mother’s example, added
to the puritanical discipline to which they had submitted the
earliest impulses of my heart, inclined me still more towards what
I used to hear called “virtue.” Self-control was as natural to me
as self-indulgence to others, and this severity to which I was
subjected, far from being irksome to me, was soothing. It was not so
much happiness which I sought in the future, as the infinite effort
to attain it, and in my mind I already confounded happiness with
virtue. No doubt, like all boys of fourteen, I was still unformed
and pliable, but my love for Alissa soon urged me further and more
deliberately along the road on which I had started. A sudden inward
illumination made me acquainted with myself. I saw myself as a
brooding, half-fledged, wistful creature, somewhat careless of others,
somewhat unenterprising, and with no ambitions save for such victories
as are to be gained over self. I was fond of my books and cared
only for the games which need reflection or effort. I did not much
frequent the society of my schoolfellows and when I did take part in
their amusements, it was only out of affection or good nature. I made
friends, however, with Abel Vautier who, the following year, joined me
in Paris and was in my form at school. He was an agreeable, indolent
boy, for whom I had more liking than esteem, but at any rate he was
someone with whom I could talk about Fongueusemare and Le Havre, where
my thoughts were continually flying.
As for my cousin Robert Bucolin, who had been sent to the same school,
he was two forms below us and I saw him only on Sundays. If he had not
been the brother of my cousins, whom, however, he was very unlike, I
should have taken no pleasure in his society.
I was at that time entirely engrossed by my love, and it was in its
light alone that these two friendships had any importance for me.
Alissa was the pearl of great price of which the Gospel spoke, and I
was like him who went and sold all that he had to buy it. Child as I
still was, am I wrong in talking of love, and in giving this name to
the feeling I had for my cousin? Nothing that I experienced later seems
to me worthier of that name--and moreover, when I became old enough to
suffer from the more definite qualms of the flesh, my feeling did not
greatly change in character; I never sought more directly to possess
her whom, as a child, I had sought only to deserve. Work, efforts,
pious acts, I offered them all up, mystically, to Alissa, and, indeed,
invented a refinement of virtue by which I often left her in ignorance
of what I had done only for her sake. In this way I became intoxicated,
as it were, with the fumes of modesty, and accustomed myself, alas!
regardless of my own comfort, to feel no satisfaction in anything that
did not cost me an effort.
Was I alone to feel the spur of emulation? I do not think that Alissa
was touched by it, or that she did anything for my sake or for me,
though all my efforts were only for her. Everything in her unaffected
and artless soul was of the most natural beauty. Her virtue seemed like
relaxation, so much there was in it of ease and grace. The gravity
of her look was made charming by her childlike smile; I recall that
gently and tenderly enquiring look, as she raised her eyes, and can
understand how my uncle, in his distress, sought support and counsel
and comfort from his elder daughter. In the summer that followed I
often saw him talking to her. His grief had greatly aged him; he spoke
little at meals, or sometimes displayed a kind of forced gaiety which
was more painful than his silence. He remained smoking in his study
until the hour of the evening when Alissa would go to fetch him. He had
to be persuaded to go out; she led him off to the garden like a child.
Together they would go down the flower-walk towards the place at the
head of the steps leading down to the kitchen-garden, where we had put
out a few chairs.
One evening, I was lingering out of doors reading, and as I lay on the
grass in the shade of one of the big copper beeches, separated from the
flower-walk only by the laurel hedge, which prevented me from being
seen but not from hearing, Alissa’s and my uncle’s voices reached me.
They had no doubt been talking of Robert; then I heard my name uttered
by Alissa, and I was just beginning to make out their words, when my
uncle exclaimed:
“He! Oh, he will always be fond of work.”
An involuntary listener, my first impulse was to go away, or at any
rate to make some movement to show them that I was there; but what
was I to do? Cough? Call out “I am here; I can hear you”? It was much
more awkwardness and shyness than curiosity to hear more which kept me
quiet. And besides, they were only passing by and I heard what they
said only very indistinctly. But they came on slowly; Alissa no doubt,
as was her habit, with a light basket on her arm, was cutting off the
heads of faded flowers and picking up from under the espaliers the
unripe fruit, which the frequent sea-mists used so often to bring down.
I heard her clear voice:
“Papa, was Uncle Palissier a remarkable man?”
My uncle’s voice was low and indistinct; I could not make out his
answer. Alissa insisted:
“Very remarkable, do you think?”
Again an inaudible answer and again Alissa’s voice:
“Jerome is clever, isn’t he?”
How could I help straining to hear? But no! I could make out nothing.
She went on:
“Do you think he will become a remarkable man?”
Here my uncle raised his voice:
“First, my dear, I should like to understand what you mean by
‘remarkable.’ One can be very remarkable without its showing--at any
rate in the eyes of men--very remarkable in the eyes of God.”
“Yes, that is what I mean,” said Alissa.
“And then, one can’t tell yet. He’s too young. Yes, certainly, he’s
very promising, but that’s not enough for success.”
“What more must there be?”
“Oh, my child! I can hardly tell. There must be confidence, support,
love--”
“What do you mean by support?” interrupted Alissa.
“The affection and esteem that have been lacking to me,” answered my
uncle, sadly; and then their voices finally died away.
When I said my prayers that evening, I felt remorse for my
unintentional eavesdropping and resolved to confess it to my cousin.
Perhaps this time there _was_ a mixture of curiosity in my resolution.
At my first words the next day, she said:
“But, Jerome, it’s very wrong to listen like that. You ought to have
told us you were there or else to have gone away.”
“Really, I didn’t listen--I just overheard you without meaning to. And
you were only passing by-”
“We were walking slowly.”
“Yes, but I hardly heard anything. I stopped hearing almost at once.
What did uncle answer when you asked him what was necessary for
success?”
“Jerome,” she said, laughing, “you heard perfectly well. You are just
making me repeat it for your amusement.”
“I really heard only the beginning--when he spoke of confidence and
love.”
“He said, afterwards, that a great many other things were necessary.”
“And you, what did you answer?”
She suddenly became very serious.
“When he spoke of support in life, I answered that you had your mother.”
“Oh, Alissa, you know I shan’t always have her--And then, it’s not the
same thing--”
She bent her head:
“That’s what he said too.”