It has been decreed in the privy council that my little boy shall have a
weekly income of one cent. Every Sunday morning, that sum shall be paid
to him, free of income-tax, out of the treasury and he has leave to
dispose of it entirely at his own pleasure.
He receives this announcement with composure and sits apart for a while
and ponders on it.
"Every Sunday?" he asks.
"Every Sunday."
"All the time till the summer holidays?"
"All the time till the summer holidays."
In the summer holidays, he is to go to the country, to stay with his
godmother, in whose house he was pleased to allow himself to be born.
The summer holidays are, consequently, the limits of his calculation of
time: beyond them lies, for the moment, his Nirvana.
And we employ this restricted horizon of ours to further our true
happiness.
That is to say, we calculate, with the aid of the almanac, that, if
everything goes as heretofore, there will be fifteen Sundays before the
summer holidays. We arrange a drawer with fifteen compartments and in
each compartment we put one cent. Thus we know exactly what we have and
are able at any time to survey our financial status.
And, when he sees that great lot of cents lying there, my little boy's
breast is filled with mad delight. He feels endlessly rich, safe for a
long time. The courtyard rings with his bragging, with all that he is
going to do with his money. His special favourites are invited to come
up and view his treasure.
The first Sunday passes in a normal fashion, as was to be expected.
He takes his cent and turns it straightway into a stick of chocolate of
the best sort, with almonds on it and sugar, in short, an ideal stick in
every way. The whole performance is over in five minutes: by that time,
the stick of chocolate is gone, with the sole exception of a remnant in
the corners of our mouth, which our ruthless mother wipes away, and a
stain on our collar, which annoys us.
He sits by me, with a vacant little face, and swings his legs. I open
the drawer and look at the empty space and at the fourteen others:
"So _that's_ gone," I say.
My accent betrays a certain melancholy, which finds an echo in his
breast. But he does not deliver himself of it at once.
"Father . . . is it long till next Sunday?"
"Very long, my boy; ever so many days."
We sit a little, steeped in our own thoughts. Then I say, pensively:
"Now, if you had bought a top, you would perhaps have had more pleasure
out of it. I know a place where there is a lovely top: red, with a green
ring round it. It is just over the way, in the toy-shop. I saw it
yesterday. I should be greatly mistaken if the toy-man was not willing
to sell it for a cent. And you've got a whip, you know."
We go over the way and look at the top in the shop-window. It is really
a splendid top.
"The shop's shut," says my little boy, despondently.